UK

No guts, no glory

April 24, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Matthew Bell:

Would an independent Scotland be missing some essential body parts?

How do you create a new country? Not a question many of us have had to ask, but one surely on the minds of thousands of Brits worrying what independence would mean for the security we have all come to take for granted.

The Scots now join an exclusive club of peoples who have found themselves charged with picking a course separate from that of its closest neighbour – in Scotland’s case, one it has been bound to for over 300 years.

Devolution has given Scotland a taste of independence, and much debate has understandably focused on whether Scotland could afford to lose the pound and many of the businesses that may prefer to be based across the border.

But the White Paper[1] published by the Scottish government last November also shows the scale of the task it faces in setting up new structures for defence and security.[2]

Or rather, it doesn’t. Because virtually every statement made on defence raised new questions without answering the multitude already posed.

Scotland’s future membership of the EU is far from certain, while the Scottish National Party has gently retreated from an absolute ban on nuclear weapons in its territory, reflecting just how much it values membership of NATO - an alliance underpinned by nuclear deterrence.

Vital organs

But even without descending into those uncertain waters, an independent Scotland would plainly have a plethora of problems to address, with few solutions clear.

Chief among these is how to create the public bodies that will look ahead, gather information, make plans and execute them to ensure Scotland stays safe and secure. All the boring stuff that in reality comprises the vital organs of a country, helps animate its spirit and keeps everything working properly.

The UK government estimates Scotland would need to create over 200 public bodies after independence,[3] including about a dozen that would be essential to secure its borders and protect the new nation.

The Scottish government countered that the list proved how “cluttered” the UK’s public sector had become, and said it would absorb many of the required roles into pre-existing departments and agencies.[4] Even so, the list of essential defence bodies is formidable.

This should not be too surprising for a country vying to break away and go it alone. But astonishingly, the SNP seems to have given little or no thought on how to pay for it.

Settling on an annual defence budget of £2.5 billion is all very well, even if many of the SNP’s stated expectations – including a fleet of at least 12 Typhoon fighters – seem more than a little unrealistic.

But factor in the costs of setting up a sprawling network of highly skilled military and civilian staff to carry out a bewildering array of highly specialised jobs, and you wonder how much money would be left.

At the risk of burdening illumination with detail, this is how the list stands. Bear in mind this is not an exact science, and much of what is currently done in UK hands could indeed be shuffled around quite a bit, as the SNP suggests – but the sheer scale of the challenge is eye-watering:

MI5 – spying for protection of the homeland
MI6 – foreign spying for protection of the homeland and overseas interests
GCHQ – data and signals monitoring
Ministry of Defence – strategic planning, co-ordination and command, troop recruitment and training, essential liaison with other armed forces
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – scientific and technical research on technologies too sensitive or specialised for the private sector
Defence Nuclear Safety Committee – expertise on nuclear programmes, sites and operations
Defence Scientific Advisory Council – expertise on other areas of engineering and technology
Defence Support Group – essential maintenance of land and aerial vehicles
Advisory Group on Military Medicine – advice on the use of medical treatments on operations
Armed Forces Pay Review Body – independent advice on military salaries

The list does not include the following bodies, whose roles are carried out within the MoD but are significant enough to warrant separate mention:

Defence Intelligence - strategic defence intelligence for the military
Defence Equipment & Support – buys all the MoD’s equipment, annual budget £14 billion

The Scottish government has at least tackled part of the conundrum, settling on the creation of a Security and Intelligence Agency to replace the work currently done by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.[5]

But even here the strategic planning and costing is woefully inadequate, according to the Royal United Services Institute.[6]

An effective agency would take years to build from scratch, and would probably have paltry access to data and signals intelligence to properly identify and track security threats, says RUSI.

To add to its woes, an independent Scotland would not have automatic access to the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence pool – shared by the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – and could also be left out from the Club of Berne, which enables intelligence sharing between European agency heads.

A familiar new friend

These challenges may push an independent Scotland towards close intelligence co-operation with the remainder of the UK, but the UK would not be in a position to share sensitive information garnered by others without their permission.

All things considered, the rest of the UK would have to decide how secure it would be with the country on its border shorn of useful intelligence and the means to understand it. In defence too, the UK and Scotland may prefer intimate collaboration to ensure the joint security of the island.

This is perhaps the nub of the issue: the extent to which UK co-operation would be desirable or even essential for Scotland in any number of areas, from defence and intelligence to finance and business.

The problem will hit both countries hard, at which point the politicians will really have to earn their pennies by striking acceptable compromises across the board.

Of course, both sides already know what could be coming and are busy installing leverage for what would be hugely important separation negotiations.

But in a worst case scenario, could Scotland really get by on its own if the political battle was lost, and it received minimal aid in defence and intelligence from the remainder UK?

Those working in defence and security already face a sea of uncertainties in their daily toil. Independence without proper planning could bring a whole lot more.

______________________

Matthew Bell is author of ‘Making the Break’ (November 2013) and ‘Separation Anxiety’ (June 2012), articles on Scottish independence and defence published by IHS Jane’s.
www.Matthew-Bell.com
@MatthewAlBell

NOTES

[1]Scottish government White Paper: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/0
[2]Scottish government White Paper - international relations and defence: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/10
[3]List of 200 public bodies Scotland would need to establish after independence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-public-bodies-that-operate-in-scotland
[4] BBC coverage of public bodies serving Scotland: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-22993752
[5] Scottish government White Paper - security and intelligence: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/11
[6]RUSI on the proposed Scottish security and intelligence agency: https://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/201403_BP_Scotlands_Blueprint.pdf

Clausewitz and cyber security: towards a new Trinity?

February 13, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Andreas Haggman:

In November 2011 the UK government published its national Cyber Security Strategy, outlining the exponential growth of the internet, the threats and opportunities this presents, and a vision for 2015. Two main themes are present throughout the document: the need to acquire knowledge, skills and capability; and the role of the three main actors in the cyberspace – government, public and businesses. It can be postulated that these themes neatly align with the Trinitarian concepts underpinning seminal war theoretician Carl von Clausewitz’s magnum opus On War. In this work, Clausewitz presents two intertwined triangular relationships: the first - reason, passion and chance - is embodied by the second - government, people and military. I will here argue that this second Trinity can be used as a main point of comparison between Clausewitz and the UK Cyber Security Strategy, but two critical flaws severely limit its applicability to war. Given the increased securitisation of cyberspace, the application of Clausewitzian theory to this nascent domain of security seems to be an apt endeavour.

Clausewitz’s time-tested adage holds that the most effective and successful wars are conducted when the government, the people and the military of a state are in harmony. Without the support of one, the other two would fail in their endeavours. Similarly, in the UK Cyber Security Strategy, the government, the public and private businesses each have important roles to play and the malfunction of any party would seriously compromise the other two.

Warfare is clearly no longer conducted in the ways of the nineteenth century and with the current hype and ongoing debate about the ascendancy of cyber war, it is imaginable that the UK Cyber Security Strategy Trinity can be applied to conflict in the digital domain. However, there are two critical flaws with this theory, one conceptual and one motivational.

The first and most crucial flaw with transposing the new Trinity onto the waging of war lies in the imperative conceptual differences between war and warfare. War, as Clausewitz defines it, is a continuation of policy by other means. War is conducted in pursuit of some political goal which could not be achieved by negotiation or diplomacy. Warfare, on the other hand, encompasses the techniques and tools by which war is conducted. Warfare is merely a component of war; it is a means by which war can achieve its ends. In other words, if war provides the strategy then warfare provides the tactics.

With regards to cyber, Thomas Rid and others have convincingly argued that the digital domain cannot be the scene for war, but only for warfare. Changing a 1 to a 0 in computer code does not by itself accomplish policy goals any more than a single bullet fired on Omaha beach brought down the Third Reich. The point here is that cyber capabilities are tactical, not strategic. Therefore, a Trinity focused on cyber is only applicable to warfare, whereas Clausewitz’s Trinity governs the conduct of war. By this reasoning, the Cyber Security Trinity is a tactical concept, but it is found in a document supposedly outlining a strategy. This conceptual disjoint means that the UK Cyber Security Strategy Trinity cannot eclipse Clausewitz’s Trinity, because the two address different levels of conflict.

The second flaw comes from the one aspect of the Trinities which differentiates the two: business. In Clausewitz’s Trinity the military fits in neatly because it shares the interests of the government and the people in upholding and maintaining national security and integrity. Private corporations, on the other hand, exist for the main purpose of making monetary profit with little incentive for furthering the interests of the nation. Granted, all three parties share an interest in preventing or defeating cyber attacks, but whilst the government and public do so for their mutual good (for example prosperity and security), businesses do so because they derive profit from a prosperous and secure government and people, not because they are inherently interested in national prosperity and security.

In an age of globalisation and multinational enterprises there is scant motivation for a company to limit itself by conforming to the wills of a single state and public. In a time of conflict, a business has the ability to simply provide its services to the highest bidder, making it a thoroughly unreliable Trinity partner. Taken independently from the conceptual flaw above, this motivational issue seems to severely hinder the inclusion of businesses at a strategic level. This hindrance seems equally applicable if we accept that the UK Cyber Security Trinity can only be applied at a tactical level. Therefore, the inclusion of businesses in the UK Cyber Security Strategy means that this Trinity cannot replace Clausewitz’s Trinity.

From these two flaws we can conclude that the Trinity of government, public and business cannot be used as a substitute for Clausewitz’s Trinity of government, people and military (where, in the last role, intelligence services are presumed to play an important part). This twenty-first century concept was conceived in the light of nascent threats to UK cyber security and in that domain it should stay. That is not to say the new Trinity does not serve a purpose. Indeed, given that cyber security is a very real and a very pressing concern, having a robust and well-publicised strategy to counter the problem is paramount. What is clear, however, is that it is a foolhardy endeavour to attempt to wrest Clausewitz from his lofty perch atop the field of war theory.

Andreas Haggman is a MA student in Intelligence and International Security at King’s College London. His academic focus is on cyber security, particularly the development of weaponised code and organisational responses to cyber security issues.

The lost art of propaganda

October 2, 2013 by Strife Staff

By Thomas Colley
(@ThomasColley)

Much has been made of the recently revealed MOD report on how to ‘sell’ war to the British public.

Critics have lambasted the MOD for attempting to manipulate the public to support war, evoking memories of Iraq in 2003. Anger was particularly generated by the suggestion that the profile of repatriation ceremonies should be reduced in order to reduce the casualty aversion of the British public. Unfortunately, by focusing on this, the media have missed the point of an astute report on how Britain should conduct future wars. Nonetheless, the report’s release under the Freedom of Information Act reveals a number of insights on how British strategic communication could be improved, and the continuing importance of its bedfellow, propaganda.

Much has been made in the literature on political communication of the difference between propaganda and strategic communications. The definitions of these terms are as most experts admit almost identical, being based essentially on the variety of methods used to influence people to think and/or act in a desired way for political purposes. Yet many experts insist that they are distinctly different. Strategic communications is supposedly based on transparency, openness and truth, and is favoured model for political communication in the information age. Propaganda on the other hand is seen by many experts as nefarious, based on selectivity, manipulation and deceit, a relic of the time of Goebbels and inapt for the modern media environment. However, as the controversy surrounding the MOD report demonstrates, the principles of propaganda should not be forgotten.

Firstly, presenting to the public an article explaining how war is to be sold to them would make Goebbels turn in his grave. As any good propagandist or strategic communicator knows, as soon as a message is revealed as propagandistic, it will be immediately rejected. People tend not to welcome evidence that their thoughts and behaviour are being influenced by their political overseers. Strategic communicators may preach openness and transparency, but surely the information operations of the MOD would be better served by never letting such an article see the light of day? Either that or employ propaganda’s old ally, censorship, and remove content sure to provoke public outrage. This could have prevented a sensible report explaining how future war should be conducted being framed as a scandalous attempt to prevent the public from honouring their dead in order to maintain support for war.

Critics may argue that it is wrong on principle to advocate government secrecy, propaganda and censorship. Others may claim that since it is highly likely that information will be revealed in an age where it is so freely available, being ‘first with the truth’ is preferable to secrecy. However, the point is that if the government is to conduct a communication campaign, openly telling the public how you intend to influence or manipulate them is neither sensible nor strategic.

As it is, whilst the report is insightful regarding public antipathy towards war, the profile of repatriation ceremonies is a peripheral point at best. Casualty aversion in liberal democratic states is not primarily determined by the sight of the dead. Liberal democracies have had no problem accepting mass casualties when the cause has been seen as sufficiently important, be it the defeat of fascism, communism or the explicit threat of terrorism. Casualty aversion originates before a conflict even begins, based on whether the reasons for military action are sufficiently strong. Minimising casualties during a conflict will sustain public opinion, but that is nothing new. By far the greatest problem the MOD faces is convincing people that military action is worthwhile in the first place.

The almost sole focus on reducing casualty aversion also represents incomplete analysis of the public reluctance to go to war. Mercenaries, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Special Forces are intelligent ways to depersonalise future warfare, reducing the body count and thereby mollifying public opinion. However, casualty aversion is not the sole source of public opposition to war. Having studied the online commentary on both the Libya intervention and the debates surrounding intervention in Syria, much of the British public’s concern is actually economic. In Libya, public opinion was more concerned that the government should solve the domestic economic crisis rather than expending funds on ‘yet another war’.

So where should Britain’s strategic communication go from here? As the MOD suggests, a ‘clear and constant information campaign’ is needed to persuade a cynical public to support future wars. The primary focus should be in constructing a convincing strategic narrative to explain why Britain’s forces should be employed, whether in Syria or wherever the next conflict will be. This strategic narrative should explain the political and economic reasons for intervention in ways that relate to the lives of the British public. However, the government needs to be prepared to adopt the principles of propaganda in order to preserve the efficacy of these operations. One thing is certain; telling people how you intend to sell war to them is not a good start.

Defence undermined?

February 21, 2013 by Strife Staff

By Hal Wilson

One of the greatest threats to global stability is US defence policy - but not for the reasons we usually hear. Typical allusions to sinister neo-cons or ‘American imperialism’ are both misleading and prejudiced. But current policy - specifically the cuts of January’s Defence Strategic Guidance - reflects a dangerous ignorance of history.

That this came about is no great surprise. Consider trends in US politics and discourse. The final US presidential debate saw a highly symbolic illustration of this. Mitt Romney’s remark on numerical decline in the US fleet was instantly met by Barack Obama’s scornful quip about “horses and bayonets.” Alternatively, observe the opening scene of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. The protagonist decries the idea of America as the world’s greatest nation, snapping that one of the few areas it leads in is defence spending - surpassing the next twenty-six countries combined. (The clear implication being ‘how pointless!’) Similar observations abound, sharing a similar theme: US military spending is bloated and useless; opponents of cuts are old-fashioned or dangerous.

A deeper investigation quickly highlights the problems. Obama’s quip emboldened liberal allies - but it also highlighted simplistic, worrying thinking about defence in the modern era. Equally, Sorkin’s piece in The Newsroom strikes me as childishly trite - reeling off numbers sounds convincing until you put them in context. Namely, US defence spending reigns supreme largely because so many have relied so long on America for cheap defence: the results are self-evident.

Note that Operation Ocean Shield, NATO’s anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia, rests primarily on American naval power. Even so, too few ships are committed to adequately patrol the area. Likewise, while France and Britain provided major impetus toward a NATO mission against Colonel Gadaffi, the US again bore the brunt of the effort. Conversely, many European states made risible contributions to that mission - or in Germany’s case, none at all. Britain’s recent Strategic Defence and Security Review neatly underlines this: the Royal Navy is now too small to properly patrol the Somalian coast. Accordingly, when UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond urged a stronger German approach to defence, it was hard to take him seriously, but his stance was valid. Europe has largely grown complacent behind an American shield that now threatens to disappear.

This takes us back to the contentious statement beginning this article. The risk to global stability comes from the fact that the cuts threaten to hamstring the most meaningful force behind its maintenance: American power. Already, US planners find it a “struggle to preserve the necessary forces in CENTCOM to address all the possible conflicts and crises.” In 2011, a bipartisan commission found the US Navy “would need 346 ships to meet its global commitments. But, as a result of budget cuts, the fleet is going to decline from 282 ships today to fewer than 250…”. Indeed, declining numbers “means longer cruises with less time… [for] maintenance and for sailors to recuperate” - a deceptively simple yet crucial point.

Suddenly, Obama’s scornful comment to Romney seems rather ill-considered.

History warns us against such a policy as that in January’s Strategic Guidance. When European war loomed due to a Middle East crisis in 1832, overwhelming British naval power underscored Palmerston’s effort to prevent it. Likewise, it was the Royal Navy’s strength that helped it overcome terrible attrition in suppressing the slave trade. It was a strategic reserve in both cases that allowed Britain to deliver on key policies - a crucial reserve that bolstered diplomacy in the former; that absorbed losses in the latter. And it is just such a military reserve that would be compromised by January’s outlines: a dangerous prospect in the face of a challenging international outlook.

Breaking news: M23 Rebels capture Goma

November 20, 2012 by Strife Staff

By Fred Robarts

For the past few days, I have been glued to Twitter for updates on the situation in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern Congo. According to the latest reports, the Congolese national army has now retreated from the city, leaving it in the hands of the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group. An M23-associated twitter feed has just claimed “the city is safe, population should return home, shops should be open, activities back to normal, let’s wait”. Journalists on the spot say M23 commanders have been parading in Goma before crowds of supporters.

The news has sparked student-led demonstrations against the UN in Kinshasa and Kisangani: the peacekeeping force had long promised to defend Goma, and the Security Council has been unable to do more than issue a press release and apply targeted sanctions to one of the M23 leaders. That these events take place in the shadow of the crisis in Gaza may be no coincidence. It has certainly limited news coverage and diplomatic attention.

Meanwhile, countless displaced people have nowhere to go, faced with the double threat of victorious rebels and (arguably more problematic) humiliated army troops. (Oxfam have just released a report on the plight of civilians in eastern Congo generally.)

On 1st January 2013, Rwanda will take up its seat on the Security Council. Having broken just about every rule in the UN Charter by directly backing a rebellion in a neighbouring country, and not for the first time, this represents a great failure of diplomacy and does not bode well for next year’s deliberations on Congo in New York.

Here in the UK, Andrew Mitchell’s decision to overrule his officials’ objections by providing budgetary support to Rwanda is looking worse than ill-judged. Let’s hope his successor Justine Greening will recognise that UK taxpayers won’t stand for subsidising proxy wars.

Fred Robarts was the Coordinator of last year’s UN Group of Experts on the DRC

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