Written evidence from Professor Malcolm
Chalmers, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security
Studies (RUSI)[82]
DEFENCE AND
BRITISH INFLUENCE
1. The purpose of this note is to offer
some thoughts on the UK/US military relationship, together with
pointers towards areas in which policy might be developed.
2. The relationship with the US will remain central
to UK foreign policy for the foreseeable future. As the world's
largest economy, and its largest military power by a significant
margin, the US's support is critical for the achievement of the
UK Government's main international objectives. In most areas of
policy, most of the time, the UK and US hold similar positions.
But they do not always do so. The two countries will continue
to take divergent approaches on some issues, whether because of
fundamental differences in national interests and priorities,
because of the constraints that national resources or constitutions
place on their ability to act, or simply because of differences
in political judgements.
3. The defence relationship between the UK and
the US is a central part of this wider relationship, and has its
own particular features. Despite the withdrawal from Empire, the
UK has continued to give a significantly higher priority to defence
spending than its NATO European allies. This additional investment
is commonly justified by the closer relationship with the US that,
it is argued, the UK gets in return.
4. One of the key distinguishing features
of the UK's contemporary defence policy is that its military capabilities—and
indeed those of most NATO Member States—are now primarily
designed to be used as contributions to collective operations,
rather than in defence of uniquely national interests. Thus, for
most of the more challenging types of operations, the UK only
envisages committing its armed forces to operations if the US
is also doing so. For example, despite claims that the operations
in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade were vital to the
UK's national interests, there was never any question of it being
involved in these operations without US military commitment. Nor,
despite the government's insistence on the threat that a Taliban-led
Afghanistan would pose to the UK, is there now any realistic possibility
that the UK would retain its armed forces in that country were
the US to leave.
5. The Government's commitment to maintaining
a position as the US's leading ally (previously in Iraq, and now
in Afghanistan) has been a driving force in recent decisions to
commit forces to major operations. It has also been a key driver
in debates on how geographical responsibilities in theatres of
operations have been shared, and on the extent to which the UK
armed forces have been given operational autonomy over their area
of responsibility. Each of the UK's armed services have sought
to maintain a high level of inter-operability, as well as something
close to qualitative parity, with their US counterparts, a goal
made all the more difficult by rapid technological change. None
of this is cheap. As the time for a new UK Defence Review approaches,
there is bound to be renewed scrutiny of whether the UK is getting
an adequate return (in terms of influence on the US) in return
for its defence efforts, and what this means for future defence
priorities.
6. The UK remains one of the world's leading
middle powers on a range of comparative measures, including GDP,
development aid spending, and military capability. The diplomatic
clout from its permanent seat on the UNSC should not be underestimated;
and it has an important role (comparable to those of France, Germany
or Japan) in shaping international policy across a wide range
of issue areas, from financial reform to climate change to non-proliferation.
It needs to be realistic about the extent to which it can shape
US defence policy, given a defence budget that is only a ninth
of that of the US. Yet the single superpower does attach political
value to having allies, especially when (like the UK) they can
bring some significant military and diplomatic capacity to the
table.
7. In the light of recent experience in
Iraq and Afghanistan, together with the forthcoming Defence Review,
there is a strong case for a thorough review of how the UK can
maximise the national political and security benefits that it
obtains from its defence investments. There is still a common
tendency to articulate the need for the UK to spend more on defence
in terms of national honour and a generic need to maintain a strong
role in the world. This is often underpinned by an assumption
that the UK must accept the burden imposed by the altruistic and
internationalist nature of its foreign policy, which (it is argued)
contrasts with the more self-interested policies of other major
powers. Considerations of honour and responsibility indeed do
have a place in foreign policy. Yet there is a danger that, if
not anchored in a clear calculus of national benefits and interests,
these sentiments can lead to policy approaches of doubtful utility
and unacceptable costs.
8. Although public support for the armed
forces appears stronger than ever, levels of public support for
the operations that they are being asked to conduct (in Iraq and
now Afghanistan) have fallen to worryingly low levels. If that
support is to be rebuilt, the Government will need to do more
to reconstruct a clear linkage between UK national interests and
the deployment of its armed forces on what are widely seen to
be US-led "wars of choice".
9. So how should the UK shape its approach
to US-led interventions so as to more clearly pursue its own interests,
while accepting that those interests are normally still best pursued
in an alliance setting?
10. First, where particular UK interests
are at stake (eg terrorist threats to the UK from Pakistan), it
should use the influence that it acquires through its military
contributions to argue for US and alliance support for those interests.
11. Second, it should recognise that the
point at which it can exert the greatest influence on the US (or
other allies contemplating military action) is either when decisions
to take military action are about to be taken, or when commitments
to provide forces (or reinforcements) are being made. If the UK
has reservations about how military operations may be conducted,
or whether they should be conducted at all, it needs to be willing
to link its commitments to a satisfactory resolution of its concerns.
Sometimes, it needs to be willing to say no.
12. Third, it should recognise that, when
the US is fully engaged and determined to take military action,
the views of allies are unlikely to count for much in its decision-making
calculus. This was probably the case in Iraq in 2002-2003. By
contrast, the UK is more likely to have some influence in situations
where the US, for whatever reason, is less willing to commit itself
wholeheartedly to an operation. For example, when the UK was the
leading ISAF power on the ground in Helmand in 2006-08, it had
a commensurate share in shaping policy in that province. Once
the US began to deploy large forces to the province in 2009, however,
the UK's ability to set the ISAF agenda in Helmand, and indeed
in southern Afghanistan as a whole, began to decline. One lesson
from this is that the UK can often be more influential if it pursues
an approach that is complementary to that of the US, rather than
simply mirroring whatever current US priorities might be.
13. Other recent examples of the benefits
of a "complementary" defence posture (as distinct from
a "supplementary" one) were (a) the UK's national intervention
in Sierra Leone, when no other NATO member state would have been
willing to take on such a commitment; (b) the UK's championing
of the possible use of ground forces in Kosovo in 1999, at a time
when President Clinton was reluctant to do so. In both cases,
it was the UK's willingness to take a lead in military action,
or to plan for unilateral action, that was the key to its ability
to help shape the strategic environment.
14. Finally, the government should focus
defence investment in areas of national comparative advantage,
where the gap in capabilities between the UK and US is less than
that in overall military capability, and where a second centre
of operational capability can accordingly bring greater influence.
Capabilities in which the UK still claims to be relatively well-placed
include special forces and intelligence services. Some might add
a governmental aid machinery that is (compared with USAID) relatively
well-geared to working directly with local governments. Comparative
advantages can often vanish remarkably quickly, given the US's
ability to innovate and its massively greater resources. With
the recent surge of doctrinal innovation in the US military, for
example, the UK has now largely lost the comparative advantage
in counter-insurgency that it had developed in Northern Ireland.
In the coming period of defence austerity, it will be particularly
important to be able to prioritise those areas where comparative
advantage can be sustained, where necessary at the expense of
those areas where this is not feasible.
25 September 2009
82 Malcolm Chalmers is Professorial Fellow in British
Security Policy at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence
and Security Studies (RUSI). He is also Visiting Professor in
Defence and Security Policy at Kings College London. He is a member
of the Defence Secretary's Defence Advisory Forum. This paper
develops some ideas that were discussed in Malcolm Chalmers, "A
Force for Influence? Making British Defence Effective", RUSI
Journal, 153, 6 December 2008, pp 20-27. Back
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