1) Britain to maintain "hard", "soft" power in world, says Tony Blair
2) Leading article: Brown's duty to the forces
3) Full text of the PM's lecture


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 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-01/13/content_5600198.htm



Britain to maintain "hard", "soft" power in world

edited by Mu Xuequan, Xinhua, 13 January 2007


LONDON, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on
Friday that Britain should continue to engage in "hard" and "soft"
power to meet the current challenges in the changing world.

Addressing on board HMS Albion in the southern English naval port of
Plymouth, Blair said, "Today's security threat is qualitatively new
and different; that the combination of hard and soft power is still
the right course for our country."

But Blair stressed that military might was essential to winning the
war on terror.

"Terrorism can't be defeated by military means alone. But it can't be
defeated without it," said he.

British Armed Forces needed to be "warfighters as well as
peacekeepers" to face challenges such as terrorism and poverty, Blair
said.

"So my choice is for Armed forces that are prepared to engage in this
difficult, tough, challenging campaign, to be warfighters as well as
peacekeepers," said Blair.

During his speech, Blair also warned that the threat posed by
terrorism would take a "generation" to defeat, and to retreat from the
challenge would be a "catastrophe."

"The battle will be long. It has taken a generation for the enemy to
grow. It will, in all probability take a generation to defeat," he
said.

"To retreat in the face of this threat would be a catastrophe. It
would strengthen this global terrorism; proliferate it; expand its
circle of sympathizers," said Blair.



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 http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2152437.ece



Leading article: Brown's duty to the forces

The Independent, 14 January 2007


We are in a twilight period of politics, where Tony Blair makes the
arguments but Gordon Brown makes the decisions. This curious
arrangement is most evident in defence and security policy. Recently,
the Prime Minister made the argument for keeping open the option of
renewing the Trident nuclear weapons programme, while the Chancellor
nodded and agreed to honour the cheques, which will start to be
presented after he moves next door.

Last week, the pattern was repeated. On Friday, the Prime Minister
made an eloquent case on behalf of the armed forces for a higher share
of public spending. He asked the nation to endorse a foreign policy
that would require the use of military force in order to defend global
and, therefore British, security. Put like that, The Independent on
Sunday supports him. We have always drawn a rigorous distinction
between Afghanistan, where the use of force was and remains justified
and necessary, and Iraq, where it was not. We do not advocate a
neutralist foreign policy, and want our armed forces to be capable in
principle of deployments on the current scale.

This newspaper has been as forthright in its praise for the bravery of
our service personnel, in every theatre, as it has been in its
condemnation of Mr Blair's decision to join the US invasion of Iraq.
If we want a stronger role for the United Nations in enforcing
international law - and we do - then countries such as Britain have to
be prepared to deploy soldiers to make it happen. Nor should we forget
that British forces still have an enviable reputation for
peace-keeping, as well as for war-fighting.

We agree with the Prime Minister that the British people should decide
what they want their armed forces to do, and then give them the
equipment needed to do it. We have argued strenuously that our
soldiers should be given the tools to finish the job - even if, in
Iraq, it is not a job that should have been started. However, it is
the Chancellor who will decide, not just as Chancellor but as a prime
minister whose elevation will coincide, more or less, with the
Comprehensive Spending Review in July.

It is Mr Brown, then, who will have to take the hard decisions about
what precisely Mr Blair's plausible rhetoric means in numbers with
pound signs in front of them. And there are at least two subjects over
which Mr Blair glossed unconvincingly. One is the Royal Navy and the
other is the Eurofighter project. Although he tried to coddle his
audience on a new ship with amphibious capabilities in Plymouth, he
did not begin to make the case for why the navy needs so many
expensive vessels. How are new aircraft carriers, destroyers and
attack submarines going to help in the fight against al-Qa'ida? We do
not say that they are not needed, only that the case was not made last
week by the outgoing Prime Minister. The same question could be asked
of new fighters for the Royal Air Force, which Mr Blair did not even
mention, perhaps because he was not speaking to an RAF audience.

In the long term, therefore, it is possible to imagine savings that
could be made on some of the hardware of traditional inter-state
conflict - which is, incidentally, where costs are rising fastest and
where the Ministry of Defence has the worst procurement record. But in
the short term, the pressing need for better pay, housing and
equipment for troops on longer tours of active service is bound to
require higher defence spending for the foreseeable future.

Mr Blair has asked the right questions, and has started to provide
some of the right answers. He has, however, still left some of the
trickier nettles for his successor to grasp. It will be a test of Mr
Brown's leadership that he asks searching questions about the value
for money obtained on large, over-specified, hi-tech defence projects.
But for now everyone should be agreed that, in contrast, spending on
pay and living conditions for squaddies can never be money misspent.



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 http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page10735.asp



Full text of the PM's lecture


Ten years into Government, we are presently conducting a review into
every major aspect of policy to set a unified platform and policy
direction for the future. Recently, we debated around the Cabinet
table, the paper on Britain's foreign policy over the past decade.
Essentially there have been three defining aspects to it.

First, it has been governed as much by values as interests; indeed has
attempted to suggest that it is by furthering our values that we
further our interests in the modern era of globalisation and
interdependence.

Secondly, it has had, at its foundation, two major alliances, with
America on the one hand and Europe on the other. And thirdly, it has
combined, almost uniquely, "hard" and "soft" power.

In other words, Britain has been at the forefront of the fight against
terrorism: in defeating Milosevic; to help prevent Sierra Leone
falling into the hands of gangsters - all of which have required
military action; and have also been leaders in the fight against
poverty in Africa, for action to combat climate change, in debates
over world trade or the MEPP - all of which have required diplomatic
and financial commitment of a different kind.

But it is fair to say that the "hard" power has been considerably more
controversial than the "soft".

It has also involved our Armed forces in some of the most difficult
and intractable fighting they have seen since WWII or at least since
Korea. We have suffered casualties, each one of which represents not
just a life lost, but a family bereaved, a unit of comrades mourning
their loss; and a nation, concerned and questioning the cost.

Over these past years I have visited our troops in Iraq, in
Afghanistan and many other places. I have always come away inspired
by their buoyant determination, professionalism and extraordinary
spirit. I am aware that visiting Prime Ministers can often get a
false impression. But the morale of those carrying out their
assignment has been high; their sense of mission, strong; their pride,
palpable and contagious.

Indeed, very often those with the most dangerous task are those most
up for it, most resolute.

But away from the front line, their families wait. And at the front
line, as the enemy switches tactics, so there are all the
understandable but still vital issues of logistics. In general the
British Armed Forces are superbly equipped. But talk at any length to
serving soldiers and there will be amongst the pride, some anger at
faulty weapons or ammunition; boots and body armour; the right
vehicles or the wrong ones; and the problems of transport to and from
the battlefield and home. Single living accommodation, in particular
and also a minority of family accommodation is below standard, though
being improved.

In the times of 10 years ago none of this would have mattered so much.
In times in which men and women are being asked for so much more,
they do. They are not just about the conditions they live and work
in; they symbolise the respect and gratitude for the nature of what
that work now entails.

Today, 5 years or more since September 11th, we can be clearer about
the new situation we face, and clearer too about the choices for the
future.

In this lecture, I shall argue that today's security threat is
qualitatively new and different; that the combination of hard and soft
power is still the right course for our country, indeed more so than
ever; but that if we want our Armed Forces to be confident of their
place in that future, we, all of us, Government, military and public,
need to know what is expected of us.

There are two types of nations similar to ours today. Those who do
war fighting and peacekeeping and those who have, effectively, except
in the most exceptional circumstances, retreated to the peacekeeping
alone.

Britain does both. We should stay that way. But how do we gain the
consent to do it?

Our Armed Forces in 1945 were geared for an era of inter-state
conflict. With the US demobilised after its war effort, the UK
possessed the largest Armed Forces in the West. Though British troops
were withdrawing from Palestine, they were stationed in West Germany,
Austria, North Italy, and Libya. In the decade after the war they were
deployed in Malaya, Korea and Kenya.

With such extensive commitments overseas, the Government was left with
little choice but to reintroduce conscription in 1946. In 1948, there
were 1.5 million military serving personnel.

The strain on the UK Armed Forces was exacerbated by Suez. The failed
invasion, undertaken with France and opposed by the US, forced a
reassessment of our place in the world and reinvigorated the
relationship with the USA.

As a direct consequence of Suez, deterrence, rather than direct
deployment, became the pivot of policy. Nuclear weapons did a lot of
the work. Manpower and conventional forces were trimmed. The Armed
Forces reduced from 690,000 to 375,000 by 1962 and conscription was
ended.

Even the low-intensity operations of the time - preventing the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait in 1961, the Indonesian aggression in SE Asia from
1963 to 1967, assisting the governments of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika
to put down rebellions in 1964 - were proving hard to sustain.

Colonial wars, again a part of our recent history, also declined
dramatically following the demise of the European empires in the
period from 1945 to the 1970s. In 1947, the UK had granted
independence of India, Pakistan and Ceylon and handed over financial
responsibility for Greece's security to the US.

We subsequently withdrew from Aden, Borneo and Rhodesia and, a few
years later, Singapore and Malaysia. By 1970, service manpower was cut
by a further 75,000 and defence estimates were reduced drastically.
Small garrisons remained only in Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Belize and the
Falkland Islands.

Of course the demands on British troops grew again in 1969, in
Northern Ireland where, at its highest point, 30,000 troops were
based.

There was a sharp decline in inter-state conflict. No two democracies
have ever been to war. There has been a dramatic increase in the
number of democracies. In 1946, there were 20 democracies in the
world. In 2005, there were 88.

The Cold War froze military conflict and allowed the ideological
battle to play out. Britain's main strategic interest for 45 years was
the need to protect Europe against the Soviet threat. Indeed, the UK
was so entirely focused on the two dimensional Cold War stalemate,
that the Argentine invasion of the Falklands came as a complete
surprise. Three months before the invasion, the Defence Secretary, had
announced a massive reduction of the Naval Fleet. Many of the proposed
cuts were reprieved just in time.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall acted as a catalyst for a reappraisal
of the type of Armed Forces that the UK would require to meet the
security challenges which emerged to fill the vacuum of a post bipolar
world. The peace dividend from the end of the Cold War was announced
in the 1990 review "Options for Change", which sought an 18% reduction
in manpower.

Yet already a new strategic reality was upon us: the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait later that year confirmed that there were situations further
afield which might require a military resolution. Closer to home the
former Yugoslavia disintegrated into civil war and ethnic cleansing.

This new security context was articulated in the 1998 Strategic
Defence Review. It called for expeditionary Armed Forces that were
deployable, agile and adaptable.

Throughout this time since the war, the proportion of defence spending
to national income, with some ups and downs, has declined. If we add
in the extra funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, then since 1997 it has
remained constant at roughly around 2.5% of GDP, incidentally one of
the highest levels still in the world. But in the ten years prior to
1997 it fell by over a quarter.

In 2004, the Chancellor announced a £3.7 billion increase to the
defence budget for the following three years, an average annual growth
of 1.4%. This settlement represented the highest sustained growth in
22 years and the longest period of sustained real terms growth in
planned defence spending for over 20 years.

The army has only declined in size by a very small amount since 1997.
Numbers in training have risen by 15% since Sep 05. At 1 Oct 2006, the
Regular Armed Forces were 96.6% manned.

But it is true that operational commitments are at a higher level than
originally planned. Service personnel are working harder and for
longer than intended.

There has been a lot of publicity about reported cuts to the Royal Navy.

We did, of course, need to modernise the Navy. The era dominated by
anti-submarine patrols requiring large numbers of frigates was over.
Today's Navy needs to be versatile. It does different things. It
supports expeditionary forces, in Sierra Leone, Iraq and elsewhere. It
helps in disaster relief, in counter terrorism, in evacuating UK
citizens from the Lebanon.

So we have made a huge effort to equip the Navy for this task. We have
made a massive boost to Britain's amphibious capabilities, such as
this extraordinary ship on which we are standing now. We have a
generation of new ships, all far more capable than their predecessors:
the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, the four Bay Class landing ships,
the strategic sealift ships, new equipment for the Royal Marines,
including the Viking vehicle like the one behind me.

And there is a further, massive ship-building programme ahead, a
programme that is likely to be worth some £14 billion over the next
10-15 years. The Type 45 destroyers - a generation ahead of the Type
42; new aircraft carriers - twice as big as our existing vessels; new
attack submarines now being built.

Of course service housing is a prominent issue. We have 49,000 houses
and 150,000 single living units, making us Britain's largest property
manager. Last year we spent £700m on housing and accommodation. MOD
expects to spend £5bn in the next decade on housing and accommodation.

Over the last five years we have upgraded some 11,000 family homes,
nearly double the target rate. This financial year we aim to upgrade
another 1,200 houses.

But all that said, we know there are real problems. The extraordinary
job that servicemen do needs to be reflected in the quality of
accommodation provided for them and their families, at home or abroad.

So much of what is written distorts the truth or greatly embellishes it.

But what is true is that the context for all these issues has
dramatically altered.

Today we face a situation, which yet again changes the paradigm within
which military, politics and public opinion interact with each other.

Put simply, September 11 2001 changed everything. Three thousand
people died on the streets of New York. They did so as a result of a
terrorist, suicide mission. The mission was planned and organised by
the Al Qaida group out of a failed state, Afghanistan, thousands of
miles away. The state was run by a fanatical, religiously motivated
dictatorship, the Taleban. Even now, the bald facts of what happened
are utterly extraordinary.

But though September 11 did indeed change the way we look at the
world, the profound nature of the change for our armed forces was not
immediately apparent.

In October 2001, the Taleban in Afghanistan was subject to military
action. Within two months by the use of vast airpower, they were
driven from office. In military terms the victory seemed relatively
easy. The cost to our forces was minimal.

Eighteen months later, with Saddam consistently refusing to abide by
UN Resolutions and with alarm at the proliferation of chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons, Iraq was invaded. This time it was
more difficult and more costly. Nonetheless, Saddam was removed
within 3 months, again by the exercise of overwhelming military
firepower.

What was unclear then but is very clear now is that what we were and
are confronted with, is of a far more fundamental character than we
supposed. September 11 wasn't the incredible action of an isolated
group, a one-off strike masterminded by Osama Bin Laden. It was the
product rather of a world-wide movement, with an ideology based on a
misreading of Islam, whose roots were deep, which had been growing for
years and with the ability to mount a radically different type of
warfare requiring a radically different type of response. What we
face is not a criminal conspiracy or even a fanatical but fringe
terrorist organisation. We face something more akin to revolutionary
Communism in its early and most militant phase. It is global. It has
a narrative about the world and Islam's place within it that has a
reach into most Muslim societies and countries. It adherents may be
limited. Its sympathisers are not. It has states or at least parts
of the governing apparatus of states that give it succour.

Its belief system may be, indeed is, utterly reactionary. But its
methods are terrifyingly modern.

It has realised two things: the power of terrorism to cause chaos,
hinder and displace political progress especially through suicide
missions; and the reluctance of western opinion to countenance long
campaigns, especially when the account it receives is via a modern
media driven by the impact of pictures.

They now know that if a suicide bomber kills 100 completely innocent
people in Baghdad, in defiance of the wishes of the majority of Iraqis
who voted for a non-sectarian government, then the image presented to
a western public is as likely to be, more likely to be, one of a
failed western policy, not another outrage against democracy. In the
months after 7/7, we had a debate in Britain as to whether foreign
policy in Iraq or Afghanistan had "caused" the terrorism by inflaming
Muslim opinion. The notion that removing two appalling dictatorships
and replacing them with a UN backed process to democracy, with massive
investment in reconstruction available if only the terrorism stopped,
could in any justifiable sense "inflame" Muslim opinion when it was
perfectly obvious that the Muslims in both countries wanted rid of
both regimes and stand to gain enormously, if only they were allowed
to, from their removal, is ludicrous. Yet a large part, even of
non-Muslim opinion, essentially buys into that view.

So our enemy will see their strategic advantages as terrorism and
time. They are not a conventional army. They can't be defeated by
conventional means. This is the enemy our Armed Forces face today.
The enemy knows something else also. That when they kill our
soldiers, it provokes not just understandable grief and anguish, but
resulting from that, a questioning of why we are "there"; what it's
got to do with "us"; how can the struggle be worth the sacrifice in
human terms.

Yet to retreat in the face of this threat would be a catastrophe. It
would strengthen this global terrorism; proliferate it; expand its
circle of sympathisers. Given the nature of it and how its roots
developed, long before any of the recent controversies of foreign
policy, such retreat would be futile. It would postpone but not
prevent the confrontation.

So from the perspective of our Armed Forces, how do we define this new
situation? The battle will be long. It has taken a generation for
the enemy to grow. It will, in all probability take a generation to
defeat.

The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel. What
happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan; or
Indonesia; or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy
in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia. The new frontiers for our
security are global. Our Armed Forces will be deployed in the lands
of other nations far from home, with no immediate threat to our
territory, in environments and in ways unfamiliar to them.

They will usually fight alongside other nations, in alliance with
them; notably, but probably not exclusively with the USA.

Hardest of all, in fighting terrorism embedded in failed or failing
states, against terrorists indifferent to their own lives as well as
the lives of others, our forces will suffer casualties. Their
families will be back home, anxious, worried, never knowing whether it
will be them who receive the dreaded call.

The battle will be conducted in a completely new world of modern
communication and media.

Twenty-five years ago, media reports came back from the Falklands
irregularly, heavily controlled. During the first Gulf war, the media
had restricted access and we were mesmerised by footage of cameras
attached to the end of Cruise missiles. But now war is no longer
something read in dispatches. It comes straight into the living room.

Take a website like Live Leak which has become popular with soldiers
from both sides of the divide in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Operational documentary material, from their mobile phones or laptops,
is posted on the site. These sometimes gruesome images are the
unmediated reality of war. They provide a new source of evidence for
journalists and commentators, by-passing the official accounts and
records.

The combination of all these different dimensions, as I said earlier,
transforms the context within which the military, politics and public
opinion interact. For their part, the military and especially their
families will feel they are being asked to take on a task of a
different magnitude and nature. Any grievances, any issues to do with
military life, will be more raw, more sensitive, more prone to cause
resentment.

Public opinion will be divided, feel that the cost is too great, the
campaign too long, and be unnerved by the absence of "victory" in the
normal way they would reckon it. They will be constantly bombarded by
the propaganda of the enemy, often quite sympathetically treated by
their own media, to the effect that it's really all "our", that is the
West's fault.

That, in turn, impacts on the feelings of our Armed Forces. They want
public opinion not just behind them but behind their mission. They
want the "people back home" to understand their value not just their
courage.

And the politicians? I believe the risk here is quite the opposite of
what most people would think. The parody of people in my position is
of leaders who, gung-ho, launch their nations into ill-advised
adventures without a thought for the consequences. The reality is we
are those charged with making decisions in this new and highly
uncertain world; trying, as best we can, to make the right decision.
That's not to say we do so, but that is our motivation.

The risk here - and in the US where the future danger is one of
isolationism not adventurism - is that the politicians decide it's all
too difficult and default to an unstated, passive disengagement, that
doing the right thing slips almost unconsciously into doing the easy
thing.

Many countries are already in this position. But the consequences for
Britain are hugely significant. Before we know it and without anyone
ever really deciding it, in a strategic way, the "hard" part of
British foreign policy could be put to one side; the Armed Forces
relegated to an essentially peacekeeping role and Britain's reach,
effect and influence qualitatively reduced.

The irony is: the one group of people who I am sure do not want this
to happen, are the men and women of our Armed Forces. They would be
horrified by such a thought. The important thing for public opinion
and therefore for politicians is at least to comprehend the choice.

There is a case for Britain in the early 21st Century, with its
imperial strength behind it, to slip quietly, even graciously into a
different role. We become leaders in the fight against climate
change, against global poverty, for peace and reconciliation; and
leave the demonstration of "hard" power to others. I do not share
that case but there is quite a large part of our opinion that does.
Of course, there will be those that baulk at the starkness of that
choice. They will say yes in principle we should keep the "hard"
power, but just not in this conflict or with that ally. But in
reality, that's not how the world is.

The reason I am against this case, is that for me "hard" and "soft"
power are driven by the same principles. The world is interdependent.
That means we work in alliance with others. But it also means
problems interconnect. Poverty in Africa can't be solved simply by
the presence of aid. It needs the absence of conflict. Failed states
threaten us as well as their own people. Terrorism destroys progress.
Terrorism can't be defeated by military means alone. But it can't be
defeated without it.

Global interdependence requires global values commonly or evenly
applied. But sometimes force is necessary to get the space for those
values to be applied: in Sierra Leone or Kosovo for example.

So, for me, the setting aside of "hard" power leads inexorably to the
weakening of "soft" power. This is especially so given the very
purpose of the threat against which today, force is exercised. This
terrorism is an attack on our values. Its ideology is
anti-democratic, anti-freedom, anti-everything that makes modern life
so rich in possibility. When the Taleban murder a teacher in front of
his class, as they did recently, for daring to teach girls; that is an
act not just of cruelty but of ideology. Using force against them to
prevent such an act is not "defence" in the traditional territorial
sense of that word, but "security" in the broadest sense, an assertion
of our values against theirs.

So my choice is for Armed forces that are prepared to engage in this
difficult, tough, challenging campaign, to be warfighters as well as
peacekeepers; for a British foreign policy keeps our American alliance
strong and is prepared to project hard as well as soft power; and for
us as a nation to be as willing to fight terrorism and pay the cost of
that fight wherever it may be, as we are to be proud champions of the
causes of peace in the Middle East, action against poverty, or the
struggle to halt the degradation of our environment.

However, if we make that choice, then, recognising this is a new
situation for our Armed Forces, there are new commitments necessary to
make it work and make it fair. The covenant between Armed Forces,
Government and people has to be renewed. For our part, in Government,
it will mean increased expenditure on equipment, personnel and the
conditions of our Armed Forces; not in the short run but for the long
term.

On the part of the military, they need to accept that in a volunteer
armed force, conflict and therefore casualty may be part of what they
are called upon to face.

On the part of the public, they need to be prepared for the long as
well as the short campaign, to see our participation alongside allies
in such conflict not as an atavistic, misguided attempt to recapture
past glories, but as a necessary engagement in order for us to protect
our security and advance our interests and values in the modern world.

Indeed, for Government, domestically and internationally, our
commitment has to go beyond our Armed Forces. In truth, this is a
hearts and minds battle as much as military one. Reconstruction and
reconciliation, development and governance are every bit as crucial in
Iraq or Afghanistan as military might. Indeed the might is only
effective as a means of making possible the political progress. We do
this better than most countries, perhaps better than any. But even we
have immense challenges to overcome; and in terms of international
institutions capable of helping build a nation, the international
community woefully short of where it needs to be. The answer to this
should be the subject of another whole lecture. But here is where
hard and soft power have to combine within one country or situation,
so that the one reinforces the other. Military alliances, forged in
circumstances of urgent danger, tend to work. Nation-building
alliances are altogether harder; but completely critical to the
military success.

It is not easy to have this debate with the swirl of recent publicity
about the conditions of our Armed Forces - however wrong or
exaggerated it might be; or when we are in the middle of two deeply
controversial engagements of our troops. Yet this is the right time
to debate and decide it precisely because of such stormy argument.

The reason for the storm is not this or that grievance or conflict.
Its origin is the new situation we face. The post Cold War threat is
now clear. The world has changed again. We must change with it. I
have set out the choice I believe we should make. I look forward to
the debate.