Marching as to war

After yesterday's piece, here's another bit of unsolicited advice I'm happy to share gratis with the new Labour PM when he takes power: put the UK on a war footing.

I mean de facto rather than de jure, of course; I'm not suggesting we declare war on Russia, which would be suicidal, merely acknowledging honestly the realpolitik of the situation we currently find ourselves in as a nation. With Russia pushing at the eastern borders of Europe, attacking an ally, Ukraine, in a hot war while flagrantly encroaching into our airspace and territorial waters, it is clearly testing our resolve. And by poisoning its own citizens on UK soil, attempting to sever undersea cables and pipelines and allegedly interfering in our elections, sowing mis- and disinformation via our press and social media while initiating cyber attacks against our institutions and arson attacks on our Prime Minister's family, it is acting as a rogue state. To deny the reality of the threat this poses to our national security would be self-deluding and could ultimately prove self-defeating.

Our supposed closest ally, the incumbent President of the United States, blows hot and cold on a range of security and trade issues, perhaps most critically in his support for the NATO alliance, the United Nations and the post-war rules-based world order, while waging a war on Iran which has plunged the world into financial chaos. And all the while, China under Xi Jinping bides its time, waiting to capitalise, as it were, on the deepening crisis of Western democracy. As a result we find ourselves living in perhaps the most dangerous times since the Cuba Crisis at the height of the Cold War in the early-'sixties.  Despite all this, our sitting Prime Minister continues to vacillate even as his cabinet members resign in droves. The departure of his Defence Secretary, John Healey, yesterday over the failure to publish the government's long-delayed Defence Investment Plan (DIP), could be the final straw for his premiership.

I can hardly believe I'm writing this now when, for so many years, I fervently believed in demilitarisation and passionately supported withdrawal from NATO. However, times have changed, and my opinions with them. I now think it would be the height of folly not to enhance our military capabilities. It's a tragedy that it has come to this and being forced to spend more money on rearmament when there is a crying need for greater, not less, investment in public services is depressing. But the argument of retired General, Sir Richard Barrons, that Britain's welfare programmes will become "redundant" if the country is invaded, is compelling. A government's first duty is to the safety and security of its people and, as Sir Richard trenchantly put it, there's "no point worrying about our welfare if the cities are in ashes". As a co-author of the UK's Strategic Defence Review 2024-5 I suppose he would say that, but it doesn't mean he's wrong.

Cynics might claim that warmongering is good for an economy, and the actions of Donald Trump would seem to bear that out, although in reality he has probably enriched himself, his family and friends at the expense of his country. However, I don't believe a robust response to external threats need necessarily be bellicose, especially when it is intended as defensive rather than offensive. Preparing to counter hostile actions from a position of strength is probably a sensible precaution. At present the UK looks woefully unprepared to defend itself against attack, which only serves to make enemies like Putin bolder.

The last thing I want to see is our young people, who have already suffered so much from the Covid lockdown, the cost of living crisis, lack of jobs and housing, conscripted to fight a shooting war. However, recruiting more personnel into the armed forces, training and equipping them and giving them a sense of pride and purpose, could be a good thing - certainly better than the hopelessness that besets them now. It would have been great if we could have invested in our youngsters and mobilised them in the rebuilding of their neglected communities and crumbling services but that opportunity was missed and we are where we are. It was seemingly impossible to find the money for such regeneration but we will have to find the money now. That will almost certainly entail yet more belt-tightening as, having squandered the so-called 'peace dividend' of the past thirty years instead of investing it in a fairer, and therefore safer world, we have sold our birthright (or, more particularly, our children's) for a mess of potage.

Beating our ploughshares into swords now seems the inevitable outcome.