I find the coverage of United States politics in
Britain very strange. Why are we all so interested? Most Americans are fairly
clueless about the details of British politics. They might know who the Prime
Minister is, but beyond that it all gets rather hazy. Then again I remember
meeting Californians who weren’t quite sure where Vermont was. I don’t point
this out as any sort of criticism. I can’t name more than one city in Slovenia
and I doubt that I could spell it.
Why so much news coverage about American elections?
Again compare and contrast the coverage of elections anywhere else. If you
asked the average Brit to name the leaders of European Union countries how many
do you think they could manage? If you can get more than five, you’re a better
man than I am Gunga Din.
But I can easily name all the US Presidents since World
War Two and quite a few before it. Of course there is a reason for this. The
United States has far more influence over our history in recent times than any
other country. We could defend our island in 1940 with the help of those few
allies who could get here to help our defence, but we had no chance whatsoever
of defeating Germany on our own. Without American involvement in World War Two
who could have prevented Soviet forces from liberating not merely Warsaw and
Berlin, but Paris and London too?
It is for this reason that US foreign policy matters
to us in a way that Luxembourg’s foreign policy doesn’t. The problem is that
the USA and the West in general is losing its way in terms of foreign policy.
In 1991 the world looked to have turned a corner. We could look forward to
peace and prosperity. We could weep because there were no more worlds to
conquer, no more battles to fight. How’s that end to history working out for
you?
Until the end of the Cold War we thought clearly
about our objectives and thought strategically. What can we do to protect our
interests, what can we do to make the world safer and less likely to blow up in
our face. This was 19th century “Realpolitik”. It is a form of rational
self-interest. What is in the UK’s interest? What maintains the balance of
power? What heightens our influence, what diminishes it? What is risky, what is
safe?
Of course Realpolitik did not end well. Great power
diplomacy ends up with 1914. But this is really a failure of prediction. No-one
in 1914 guessed the consequences of their actions. But we don’t have this
excuse. We don’t need to guess. We know.
Strategically the West faces two major threats,
Russia and Islamic fundamentalism. What do we have to oppose them? Technology
and the desire to show how virtuous we are.
Is the world a safer place after all these years of
Mr Obama showing how nice and virtuous he is? He may have chosen hope over
fear, but I am far more scared than when he started. How is Mr Obama’s
peace-making with the Islamic world working out for you? But it is unfair to
blame him. The fault lies with us. With all of us. The fundamental weakness of
the West is that we are unwilling to fight wars in such a way that we can win. This
makes our technology useless.
The West keeps losing wars despite having the best
armies and the best weapons, because our media is determined to prevent us
doing what we need to do to win. Very low casualty levels in the context of
history are presented as catastrophic. We parade each flag draped coffin
through the streets just to discourage any of our soldiers from fighting.
Moreover we tie both hands behind our back by punishing our soldiers if they
make a mistake and focussing almost exclusively on whether our bombs have gone
astray. Let’s be clear. This model of fighting wars loses. It is decadent and
it is not serious. If we had fought the Second World War in this way we would
have lost.
Imagine the following scenario. Mr Putin decides that
he no longer wants the Kaliningrad region to be an island. He masses his tanks
in Smolensk and he drives through friendly Belarus to so as to reach
Kaliningrad. The distance is quite small. He would in this way cut off the
Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. These countries are in NATO. In
theory this means that the whole of NATO ought to attack Russia. But Mr Putin
would already have reached Kaliningrad by the time we started to complain. What
would we do? We could try to defeat him by using conventional forces or nuclear
forces. If we can’t even defeat the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan what do you
suppose our chances would be of defeating Russia? How many deaths did it take
for the USA to be driven out of Mogadishu? It took 18. How many
would the USA be willing to lose to liberate Estonia? How many would we be
willing to lose? We lack the means and the will to defeat Russia in such a
scenario and so we are left only with nuclear attacks on Russia. Are you scared
yet?
This is where the politics of virtue has led us. Our
armies have become unable to fight. We care more about the human rights of our
enemies than our own right to defeat them and defend ourselves against them.
People in the West do not understand Russia. Our
universities closed most of the Russian departments after the Cold War, but the
only way to understand Russia is speak Russian. We had the chance in 1991 to
make Russia a partner. It should have been offered membership of NATO and the
chance to join the EU. Instead we pushed and prodded and tried to extend the
borders of NATO right up to Kiev and Tbilisi. This is dangerous. Above all now
we need to make peace. Sanctions are useless against Russians. They are willing
to eat grass. They have done so before, they can do so again. Sanctions don’t
touch them. Treat Mr Putin as if he was called Brezhnev and ask for détente. If
you get it be grateful and stop prodding.
Meanwhile we are equally unclear in our strategic
thinking about the Middle East. This again is one of the main reasons why we
must make peace with Russia, because here we have a shared interest and a
common enemy. Moreover, Russia has the means and the will to defeat Middle
Eastern forces on the ground. Russia cares little about our complaints, because
they can win, while we can only lose. They are willing to do what is necessary
while we are not. That is why we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, while Russia
will win in Syria. Why should they listen to us?
The key mistake the West has made in the past 30
years and more is to forget that what matters is our own strategic interest in
the region. Does it really matter to you who rules in Iraq, Syria, Egypt or
Libya? For those who favour the politics of virtue it matters very much indeed.
As soon as the “Arab Spring” began we had various politicians praising those
who were rebelling. The BBC was in raptures about how soon peace, love and
democracy would come to the Arab world. How’s that working out for you folks?
For the foreseeable future the only thing that
contains Islamic fundamentalism is not giving the people of the region a
choice. If you let them choose, they will choose Islamic fundamentalist parties
that will then ban and persecute everyone else. If you doubt this, then you
haven’t been watching the news for the past few years. The people who contained
Islamic fundamentalism were called Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar
al-Assad. They may have been some of the worst dictators in history but it was
in the long term strategic interest of the West that they remained in power.
The reason we in the West take it upon ourselves to
interfere is because we are obsessed with showing our virtue. Gaddafi was a
nasty man so Mr Cameron was desperate to show that he was a nice man by helping
to overthrow him. Later when Libya is taken over by Jihadis Mr Cameron doesn’t
look like such a nice man.
Islamic fundamentalism isn’t an aberration it is a
feature. A recent survey in France showed that there are three main groups
among the Muslim population. 46% are fully integrated into French society, 25%
are Conservatives and 28% are authoritarians.
What proportion of these people will sympathise with
Jihad? How many will be pleased when Israelis are killed in acts of terrorism?
How many will cheer if French armed forces are defeated in a war against a
Muslim country? How many sympathise with ISIS or are tempted to go there to
fight? We don’t know. But it isn’t a trivial percentage. France has suffered a
great deal from terrorism in the last few years. It isn’t accidental that there
are such terrorists in France, while there are none in Poland.
This is our problem. If Germany lets in one million
refugees from Syria, what proportion will integrate, what proportion will be
Conservative, or Authoritarian? What proportion will be keen on Jihad? We don’t
know. No-one knows. You can’t tell. Above all you can’t tell the difference.
Here we have the virtue signalling again. Mrs Merkel
is desperate to show how virtuous and kind she is. But her virtue and kindness
is at the expense of the safety of her own country. A proportion of the people
she is kind enough to allow into Germany and thereby the whole of the EU hate
both Germany and Europe. If they are Conservative and Authoritarian they
probably will disagree with many aspects of life in Germany. They would prefer
it that German women dressed modestly. They might think that Muslims who
convert to Christianity should be killed. They might prefer polygamy to
monogamy. They might think homosexuality should be against the law. Many if not
the vast majority will integrate successfully into German society. But out of
the millions Germany allows to come to Europe a significant proportion won’t.
Where is the upside for Germany?
It is for this reason that virtue signalling is so
dangerous. We must think of what is in the long term strategic interest of our
own country. We have a duty to help other people, but not at the expense of
making our own country more dangerous. We too have human rights and we have the
right not to live in constant fear. We must treat each individual individually
and without prejudice, but it is not prejudice to suggest that people who come
from a country where there is a lot of Islamic fundamentalism are more likely
to Islamic fundamentalists than those who come from, for example, Hungary.
The world is becoming a more dangerous place. If we
continue to prod Russia rather than make peace it will become more dangerous
still. But above all we must defend Europe’s borders or else there will no
longer be a Europe to defend.
