Towards a New Security Package?

By

Dr Julian Lindley-French,

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My presentation today has unashamedly Churchillian overtones because of the times in which we live and the challenge that we confront. Make no mistake, we are at a critical moment in the Global war on terror. It is a moment that the Royal Navy calls the ‘Golden moment’. The moment in a battle when decisive shift can take place if the right decisive action is taken. In the war on terror we are at that moment, not because of anything the enemy is doing but because of the choices we have before us. It is those choices that are the focus of my presentation today. Put simply, we are at a crossroads between reaction and strategy. At the cusp of effective grand strategy or on the verge of losing the political momentum vital to the successful prosecution of the sustained warfare upon which we have embarked. Three things will be vital – momentum, legitimacy and effectiveness.

It was Brigadier-General Schroesser who said yesterday that this is, and I quote, “unlike a war we have ever fought”. If we needed reminding of that I think events in Moscow overnight are reinforcing that. It is a war, as Chris Donnelly said, that is re-defining the meaning of international security. The sheer scale and complexity of that re-definition is such that in America and Europe at least it has made the development of that grand strategy hideously complex, not least because the war has required the generation and sustainment of the largest political-military coalition ever known against an enemy whose total membership could fit inside at most a single ship. An enemy that has no natural centre of gravity and yet has a global reach. An enemy driven by moral medievalism but, as Captain McGraven said, comfortable with the tools of the very globalisation he despises. An enemy that represents potentially our worst nightmare – a fusion of criminality, awesome destructive power and fanatical intent. He is the great strategic paradox of our age – a small enemy who will require the combined efforts of states the power of which the world has never known to defeat him. A defeat that the enemy will never acknowledge, a victory that we will never be able to proclaim. His destruction, for nothing else will suffice, will take a fundamental change in our mindset about what constitutes security and, indeed, its achievement.

The scale of the task before us and the Revolution in Security Thinking that the new war will entail has led to two very different reactions in the two great arsenals of democracy – America and Europe. America has desperately sought to apply its awesome conventional military power that, impressive though it is, has neither the doctrine, the aptitude nor the capability in the face of such an enemy. Whereas many Europeans in a further example of the strategic pretence which is increasingly making me ashamed of my homeland (I am an avowed European) seek to avoid their security responsibilities by avoiding critical security investments to such an extent that it seems little more than the new appeasement. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Never in the field of human conflict have so few created such confusion for so many”.

Only a revolution in security thinking will sustain an effective Global Reach counter-catastrophic terrorism strategy. It will be a strategy founded not on four ‘Ds’ but seven because if the mission is to drive the coalition - Define, Detect, Deter, Dissuade, Disrupt, Destroy and Develop.

Define. To establish Grand Strategy we need agreed definition. Who the enemy is and how the war is going to be prosecuted are profoundly political choices involving many. Such agreement is the foundation upon which the coalition will be founded. There is a strong suspicion beyond these borders that to many Americans the coalition on terror is a coalition against Al Qaeda. It is not a Global War on terror. Without a demonstrable and sustained willingness to act even handedly, even if that involves taking domestically delicate political actions the US will find it hard to sustain the coalition. Double standards will destroy the political foundation of the coalition. Make no mistake about that. Ambassador Oakley said it was a legal problem. With respect I disagree, it is a political problem. And I do not limit my criticism to the US. My own country has some pretty hard questions to answer.

This is pivotal. Given the inability of the US to fulfil its own National Security Strategy with the policies and capabilities available to it, the role of friends and allies, by definition, will be essential. It is vital, therefore, that we are all in at the outset. Leadership yes, but enlightened leadership, not just received wisdom from Washington.

The US is right about Saddam but the French have a point. The US will not be effective if it is not also legitimate. And authorisation of force by Congress is not enough. You need the UN. On Iraq the American strategic analysis is essentially correct. Let us make no mistake about this. However, the greatest test of US policy will come after the final bullet has been fired because what America is trying to do is about far more than Saddam, i.e. it is far more than about personalities - it is about policy. It is about introducing a vital coercive element into global security governance to underpin the credibility of what are essential co-optive elements and instruments. For all its many imperfections the UN remains vital for world security governance. However, in a world in which ever smaller groups are likely to get their hands on ever more destructive power co-optive approaches and regimes alone cannot do the job. But the US must make this clear. Too often, people here in Washington seem to forget that there is no such thing as a domestic audience for a superpower. America must be clear that it is buttressing the UN, not replacing it. It is Europe’s job to remind its old friend of that security bottom line whilst at one and the same time recognising that security will only be assured when all America’s allies support the US in what is a vital and self-evident endeavour.

Detect: Churchill also once said “if Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a favourable reference to the devil”. This is going to be an information war, a war of information dominance. Intelligence agencies will be in the front-line and they will have to share information with states and institutions they would rather not. Simple fact. Effectiveness, therefore, will be dependent upon the re-assertion of civilian control over such agencies which have for too long decided policy. As Superintendent Pilgrim said “we cannot manage Intelligence in stovepipes” be it at a joint or combined level. Stovepipes will have to be blocked and turfs trampled on.

Deter: Classical deterrence is clearly out. However, I am not sure that innovative forms of deterrence cannot be tried. We could start by deterring organised crime from any support of terror. As Richard Millett demonstrated it is but a tenuous link. Indeed, organised crime could become an important source of information in the struggle. We can deter backers, the not quite so committed and the states that tacitly support the enemy. But again, that will only happen if effectiveness is backed up by legitimacy and a multilateral and multinational approach is consistently applied, mixing effective coercion with sustained co-option. Applying pressure points to key constituencies, offering incentives to others. Deterrence is not dead.

Dissuasion: linked to deterrence is dissuasion. We need to dissuade pools of potential support. Francois Gere talked about Information Warfare and psyops. These will be important elements of the strategy. But so will better diplomacy, particularly American diplomacy. It seems a crying shame that what was once one of the greatest tools in modern foreign policymaking – the US State Department, has been allowed to wither on the vine to the point where in many parts of the world the US presence is but a fraction of the European. Too many people around the world today see only mighty America they no longer see inspirational America. An America that too often talks like the Liberal-Imperialist Britain that Churchill championed. The Doctrine of the Free Hand re-visited in which for Britain power and opportunity came together to imply virtue. It is utterly seductive but it will not win hearts and minds and this is a hearts and minds war. As Ambassador Thomas put it yesterday the lesson that America can learn from Europe is that ultimately victory will be represented by the successful upholding of the international law that was America’s gift to the world. What Churchill once called “Arms and the Covenant”.

Disrupt: We also need to be ruthless. We need to break up their planning functions and their lines of command and supply. Churchill also once said “Give us the tools and we will finish the job”. We need the tools. We need far better co-ordination at a transnational level between criminal and military intelligence. We need to balance signals intelligence with more human intelligence. We need more of the paramilitary forces Giovanni Cataldo, Carlo Finizio and Ignacio Cosada talked about. Indeed, I think the EU’s European Security and Defence Policy would be far better employed if it produced 60, 000 Guardia Civil/Carabinieri/ Gendarmes rather than another heavy corps calling on almost exactly the same pool of forces as NATO. We need at least 5000 SAS standard Special Forces to pre-emptively strike terror in its lair? These could be Europe’s unique contribution to this war if we ever get our act together. Cost-effective and effective given the nature of the enemy.

Destroy: Ultimately, as I have said we need to destroy these people. As Churchill said, it is about “the sustained application of overwhelming force”. For that we need to project devastating military power rapidly, anywhere in the world and not just American military power. The US has a right to expect of its major allies the military capabilities so to do. Britain and France are embarked on that road. At the same time, America cannot simply avoid its wider security responsibilities by hiding behind the “superpowers don’t do windows” mantra. Leadership requires broad security engagement and American security engagement is too often, too narrow. The coalition will not hold if the US assumes that Europe will simply collect its strategic garbage. In certain important respects European forces, particularly the British and French, are better than their American counterparts, as Bob Parito suggested. Put simply, US forces are too heavy for too many of the missions in the new war. Indeed, I have posed the question of late, what is the US Army for these days? Make no mistake, the US military needs to be far more profoundly transformed, than currently envisaged. It is not all about money spent and programmes developed. One thing that has struck me about US defence policy after 911 is how, on the one side, we have been told that this is a new war and yet on the other the Pentagon too often seems to be saying, therefore we need more of the same thing. Too many vested interests. It is no realise an effects-based approached.

Last, but most certainly not least – Development: In the history of the world there has never been a time when the gap between the richest top twenty nations and the rest of the world has been so pronounced. We in the West are rich enough and powerful enough to help drain the swamp of despair that succours these serpents. Co-option is the essential legitimiser of coercion. We need nothing short of a global Marshall Plan. Yes, we must be determined, committed, consistent, cunning and ruthless. Just like our enemies. But ultimately this war will be won by compassion.

Too much to contemplate? Well, this is the price we are going to have to pay if victory is to mean anything in this war. We will not win unless we face up honestly to the scope of the challenge that these ‘few’ have posed us. As Chris Donnelly said what we need is ‘active security’ – global active security. Indeed, in NATO we have no better platform for effective Global Reach Counter-terrorism. However, it must be a NATO that is properly tasked, properly funded and properly structured.

Churchill also said that America could normally be relied upon to make the correct decision, once it had exhausted every other option. Let us hope that goes for Europe too.