BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
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units were to the fore and led by a British general.12
It was during the Kosovo war that Blair made the case for Western
states to take on those responsible for genocide, ethnic cleansing and
repression. In April 1999, during one of the more difficult periods for
NATO, Blair set out his stall in a major speech in Chicago.13 This was part
of an itinerary that also involved a 50th anniversary NATO summit in
Washington and an argument with Clinton over the use of ground forces
in Kosovo. This speech challenged the norm of non-interference in the
internal affairs of others, including by forceful means, while setting stringent tests against which any military intervention would be judged. This
picked up on a well-developed debate among the commentariat. In this
regard it was significant not so much for the originality of its content but
because here was a European leader challenging the traditional right of
states to non-interference in internal affairs when it was being used as a
cover for genocide and oppression and making the case for the use of
force in pursuit of objectives that were described in altruistic terms.
Another reading of the speech was that at the same time it answered
critics who argued that this line of argument created for NATO a right to
intervene wherever and whenever it chose. Five tests were set down: a
strong case, exhausted diplomacy, realistic military options, a readiness
to accept a long-term commitment and a link to national interests. These
were potentially restrictive, and in late 1999 could be used to explain why
there was little that could be done in response to the Russian campaign in
12 The government’s analysis of Kosovo is found in Ministry of Defence, Kosovo: Lessons from
the Crisis, Cmnd 4724 (June 2000). A more critical, although still generally supportive
analysis is found in the Fourteenth Report of the House of Commons Defence
Committee, Lessons of Kosovo, 24 October 2000.
13 Speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Thursday 22 April 1999, www.fco.gov.uk. I was
later ‘outed’ as the author of the first draft of the relevant section of the Chicago speech.
Those interested in how this came about are referred to John Kampfner’s Blair’s Wars
(London: Free Press, 2004). This remains Blair’s speech. This is not only because the final
draft was not an exact copy of my first draft, but because once the words had been used by
the Prime Minister it was the meaning that he attached to the words that was important
rather than the meaning I attached to them. The same thoughts could have been expressed
in different ways.
Chechnya. Yet Chicago did provide a rationale for later interventions,
and was used in this form with East Timor (where Britain played a minor
role in an Australian-led UN operation) and, in the middle of 2000, in
Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone, contrary to expectations, British forces
acted without allies, initially to provide a rescue operation for personnel
caught up in a nasty civil war and then to shore up a separate UN mission
that was falling apart at the seams.
A further consequence of Kosovo, although this goes back to the
October 1998 crisis, was the determination of Blair to press ahead with a
European Strategic Defence Initiative. The American reluctance to put
forces at risk was becoming a critical strategic weakness for an alliance
dependent upon American support. Blair took the view that it was rather
pathetic for a rich and populous group of European nations, with substantial numbers apparently under arms, to consistently fail to muster
significant forces for actual operations. If European pretensions to a
coherent foreign policy were to have any substance then something had
to be done about the ineffectuality of its collective military response to
crises. The Blair–Chirac summit of December 1998 at Saint-Malo that
launched the project to create a new European security and defence initiative was presented in Europe as something of a U-turn for Britain, and
perhaps a way of engaging with the European project that posed fewer
domestic political difficulties than joining the euro. Blair however was
not trying to create a European defence entity as an alternative to the US
or NATO but more to insure against the US failing to meet its obligations
to European security. Blair also needed to be able to argue that this effort
would give Washington the European support that it claimed to crave.
Furthermore, the objective, as stated at Saint-Malo, was quite demanding, pointing towards a war-fighting capability: ‘the Union must have the
capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces,
the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to
respond to international crises’.14 In Britain the Eurosceptics took the
French aspiration more seriously and claimed this to be an inflammatory
policy change. This – rather than actual military interventions – was
potentially the most controversial aspect of defence policy in the run-up
to the 2001 election. Opinion poll evidence was mildly supportive of
the Euro-force, although this was very much an elite issue. Blair was able
to get the language he wanted stressing the importance of the Atlantic
14 Joint Declaration on European Defence, issued at the British-French summit, Saint-Malo,
France, 3–4 December 1998.
relationship, avoiding any suggestion that a definitive choice had to be
made between NATO and the EU. The EU would still depend on NATO
infrastructure and would not aspire to be able to cope with major wars.
Nonetheless, ambiguities in language, and suspicions between the two
organisations (despite their largely overlapping membership) meant that
this issue was never quite resolved. All the talk of a Euro-force displacing
NATO and providing the foundation for a superstate missed the point
that the real risk was that, as with a number of other European initiatives
in the area of foreign and security policy, the whole would be far less than
the sum of individual parts. In the event the concept moved forward into
relatively productive areas, although more in the peacekeeping than the
war-fighting arenas.
The impact of 9/11
Al-Qaeda’s attacks on the United States of 11 September 2001 changed
the terms of the relationship with the United States and the wider defence
debate. A furious US was bound to respond and try to take the fight
(quickly labelled a ‘global war on terror’) to this new and unexpected
enemy. Humanitarian interventions appeared as discretionary wars of
choice, with which the Bush Administration had appeared reluctant to
get involved. Islamist terrorism had created a new strategic imperative
which potentially drew Western countries into any part of the world
where such groups had acquired a foothold. Defences that could deal
with rival great powers appeared inadequate against terrorism, creating
new requirements for what became known as ‘homeland security’. The
British also accepted that they were entering a new and more dan
gerous
period of international affairs. It was now not safe to assume that armed
forces would no longer be needed for local defence, while the sort of
operations required to eliminate the sources of terrorist attack might be
quite different to those engaged in humanitarian missions. For these
reasons the government commissioned a ‘new chapter’ to the SDR.
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon (Robertson had left to run NATO)
observed in the introduction how much better it would be to engage the
enemy overseas – ‘in their backyard than in ours, at a time and place of
our choosing and not theirs’. ‘But’, he added, ‘opportunities to engage
terrorist groups may be only fleeting, so we need the kind of rapidly
deployable intervention forces which were the key feature of the SDR.’15
15 Ministry of Defence, The Strategic Defence Review: A New Chapter, Cm. 5566, July 2002.
Blair also had a quite different sort of ally to deal with. Previously he
had been concerned about the US’s somewhat narrow definition of its
strategic interests and disinterest in global problems. Now he saw an
opportunity to get it engaged in his broader international agenda. By
standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ as the closest ally,16 Blair hoped to gain
Washington’s attention as he argued for acquiring the greatest possible
international support for its endeavours, and to address the economic,
social and political roots of terrorism. Bush listened politely and
responded where he could, but to the extent he moved in Blair’s direction,
for example by working with the UN or addressing the Palestinian issue,
it was out of expediency as much as conviction. The conviction politicians closest to him, Vice-President Richard Cheney and Secretary of
Defence Donald Rumsfeld, retained a narrower, nationalist, unilateralist
perspective.17 So when it came to dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan,
it was Blair who published the dossier demonstrating the role of al-Qaeda
in 9/11,18 and as Taliban resistance crumbled he was pushing to get substantial ground forces into Afghanistan in order to help shape the
inevitable struggle for power on the ground. The British were regularly
frustrated with the lack of effort the Americans were putting into Afghan
reconstruction, as opposed to chasing remnants of al-Qaeda in and
around the borders with Pakistan, and when it was apparent that the
Taliban was starting to make a come-back in Helmand province in 2005
the British accepted the leadership of a NATO force designed to help the
Afghan government regain control.
The most important and fateful consequence of 9/11 was the occupation of Iraq in 2003. Unlike Bush, Blair was always careful not to argue
that Iraq was linked to al-Qaeda, but the 9/11 attacks had shifted the
balance of power within the US administration towards those who
argued that the country dare not wait for big threats to develop but
instead must nip them in the bud. While Blair might not have chosen this
moment to go after Saddam Hussein, it is a caricature to suggest that he
only did so because he was in thrall to Bush. He had already demonstrated his willingness to take on Iraq with Desert Fox in December
16 On 21 September 2001. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1555590.stm.
17 With the exception of Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon, the role of ‘neo-conservatives’ has
been exaggerated. In some ways if they had been more influential it would have suited Blair as
at least they had an ambitious international agenda. In the end it was the indifference to the
broader context, despite Bush’s rhetorical flourishes, that created the most severe problems.
18 Office of the Prime Minister, ‘Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United
States’, 11 September 2001, 4 October 2001.
1998. The official reports on the management of intelligence information
in the period leading up to Iraq demonstrate many failings, but there has
been no suggestion that the government ever doubted the existence of
weapons of mass destruction or that there was a real problem to be
solved.19 During 2002 Blair accepted the likelihood of military action but
also believed that it was more likely to be effective if it could be sanctioned by the UN. His strategy went awry as Bush decided to authorise an
American military build-up ostensibly designed to coerce Iraq but in
practice creating an artificial deadline for military action, while President
Chirac decided to campaign against the American push for war. The conviction with which he had campaigned on the issue gave Blair little room
for manoeuvre despite the opposition in his own party and among public
opinion. Initially the speed of the coalition victory and the overthrow of
an undoubtedly obnoxious regime provided a degree of vindication. This
was short-lived. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction, and
claims that the pre-war intelligence had been ‘sexed-up’ to justify a war
undertaken for other reasons, were damaging enough. Most damaging
was the continuation of resistance to the coalition occupation and the
failure to translate undoubted support for democracy into a stable government that could bring together Iraq’s divided communities. The security situation in Iraq deteriorated catastrophically.20
For the armed forces the Iraq campaign was frustrating but not calamitous. During the initial operations American mistakes put forces more at
risk than Iraqi resistance. The British task was to take Basra, where they
showed patience and tactical skill, although they were as taken aback as
the Americans were in Baghdad by the looting and anarchy that followed
the collapse of the old regime. As the insurgency gathered pace they were
critical of American strategy and tactics,21 and could argue that they had
coped somewhat better in southern Iraq than the Americans had in
Baghdad. Yet the south was largely Shi’ite and so less challenging than the
American sector and the British did little to confront the militias or shape
local politics. Evidence of the unpopularity of the Iraq War in the senior
ranks of the Army came in an October 2006 interview given by General
19 Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly
C.M.G. by Lord Hutton, HC 247, 28 January 1984; Chairman Lord Butler of Brockwell,
Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, 14 July 2004.
20 On what went wrong two of the best books are George Packer, The Assassin’s Gate: America
in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005); Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The
American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006).
21 Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, ‘Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations’,
Military Review, November–December 2005.
Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, when he observed that the
war ‘exacerbates the security problems for the UK’, and that ‘planning for
what happened after the initial successful war fighting phase was poor,
probably based more on optimism than sound planning’.22 By 2007 plans
were in place to reduce forces and hand over responsibility of security to
Iraqi forces.
One reason that the Army was keen to get out of Iraq was the increasing
demands of Afghanistan to push back a resurgent Taliban in the south.
This was in some ways a more challenging but also more satisfactory campaign. The commitment was made without anything like the fuss surrounding Iraq, which meant that public opinion was not prepared for a
tough campaign that soon involved casualties at the same rate as Iraq. By
the end of May 2007, after over five years, 150 military personnel had died
in Iraq, of which 115 were killed after hostile action. In Afghanistan, 57
died, of which 34 were the result of enemy action, the bulk after the spring
of 2006. The political case however was stronger: UN resolutions, a NATO
operation, and a legitimate government. The enemy was fortunately
strategically inept, and although tactically brave and resourceful it did not
adapt well. If anything the Taliban were more geared to regular warfare,
albeit of a rather crude sort, rather than insurgency operations. Their
boasts about the ease with which they would see off NATO forces did not
survive 2006. After initially being spread too thin, and with never enough
troops to hold on to areas retaken from the Taliban, NATO command
developed tactics for taking the war to the enemy. During the first months
of 2007 the Taliban suffered a number of reverses, including the disruption of their command structure. Military campaigns of counterinsurgency can only create the conditions for political, economic and
social action, without which they become much more difficult, and
success here was less easy to realise. Moreover, there was an apparently
inexhaustible supply of recruits for the Taliban, many training in the inaccessible parts of an increasingly fragile Pakistan. The indications therefore
were that this was a long-term commitment, without any guarantee of
victory though somewhat more promising than Iraq.
Pressures on armed forces
While all this was going on the pressures were building up on the armed
forces. In part this was because of demands that the forces become in
22 Sarah Sands, ‘Sir Richard Dannatt: A very Honest General’, Daily Mail, 12 October 2006.