The British Army is Not a Tool For Enforcing International Law. It Belongs to the British People
Does the United Kingdom still get to decide whether it goes to war or not? It’s no longer so ridiculous a question. Everyone now seems to approach the subject with a kind of pious resignation. Whether with Ukraine or Palestine or Taiwan; the whole thing appears to be out of our hands, and we can only be carried dutifully along by our own abstract obligations and commitments.
So we are informed that the British ‘may soon be at war’ if Russian arms happen to cross over into certain eastern provinces of Ukraine. Last month, the absence of a plan on the books to mobilise the nation for an entirely hypothetical world conflict caused a minor scandal. Britain is now, according to General Sir Patrick Sanders, also in a ‘pre-war’ state; and is in fact already ‘at war’ with Iran, and should now just act as such.
Something in me declines to be addressed in this way. And all of it seems oddly familiar. The honour of the army. The independence of the generals from party or faction. The peals that we live in a dangerous world that civilians can scarcely understand. The casual contempt for domestic politics in the face of wider ‘strategic considerations’. The primacy of treaties. The primacy of military planning – planning, which soon takes on a life of its own, and so becomes itself a spur to belligerence and mobilisation.
We once had a term for this: militarism. Everyone General Sanders’s age has been taught about the origins of the war of 1914-18 in the same way – of general staffs, systems of alliances and military schedules spinning totally out of control, taking from statesmen any real powers of decision during those fateful weeks in July 1914.
Preventing this from ever happening again meant abolishing the last of these powers. By the end of the century the old sovereign right to wage war – in many ways the essential characteristic of the nation state – had been virtually done away with. Military action, where it was allowed, was outsourced to a frame and edifice of international treaties, laws and obligations.
The result has been a system of military commitments that’s deeper and more binding than the secret pacts of the 1910s ever were. These rose and fell out of diplomatic expediency, but the system of treaties in the 2020s has something like the force of law behind it. Article 5 of NATO absolutely commits British, Canadian and American troops to answer any infringement on the sovereignty of Estonia or Turkey.
International law now demands an armed fealty that would’ve shocked even those living through the fever pitch of militarism a hundred years ago. The German General Staff of 1914, in all its bulimia and hysteria, would never have accepted such a constraint on its actions. Nor indeed would the British cabinet, which hummed and hawed endlessly over whether to come to the defence of Belgium – a country that is 50 miles from the coast of Kent.
And there’s a domestic side to this as well. If the authority of the central government has withered in favour of international law, then this has only increased the prestige of the military: the stately enforcers of this law overseas. To its leaders, the honour, prestige and esprit de corps of the British military has become inextricably bound up with international law, and the ‘commitments’ that it entails.
And so we arrive at that other characteristic of militarism: the escape of the army from civilian control. As central democratic authority has declined, both the military and military priorities have begun to intervene in public life in ways that would’ve seemed downright bizarre just 30 years ago.
Notice it once and you’ll start to see it everywhere. The British armed forces are now, apparently, allowed to refuse orders if a clash with some idea of international law is implicit. In 2022, the Royal Navy rebuffed a request from the Home Secretary to patrol the channel for illegal migrants. The RAF then ruled out the idea of flying them to Ascension Island.
Or see it in how the British are also now expected to settle the military’s personal debts of honour. The country’s centre-Right normally has to at least gesture towards immigration restriction; but all this goes out the window when it comes to the army’s old mercenary colleagues – like Gurkhas and Afghans – and the obligation to settle them among the civilian population after their contracts expire.
Nor do the British now scruple to put military men at the head of public life. The country’s political and media class now almost demands their leadership. Dan Jarvis MP, a virtual cipher, was held out for years as the natural alternative to Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn simply by dint of military experience. The same is true of Ben Wallace, Tom Tugenhadt, Penny Mourdant and Tobias Ellwood – where a vague ‘Forces’ frisson was enough to earn them a ringside seat in national politics.
More than anything else, we see it in the breeziness with which people now talk about conscripting the young in the name of ‘Our Obligations’. Owen and Sassoon could write about the squalor and futility of the Great War, but even in this case one might have plausibly said that the safety of the home islands was in some way at stake. And even then, this society baulked at mandatory service until 1916 – two whole years after hostilities began.
But in the 2020s, pre-emptive conscription is now being seriously discussed for the sake of two eastern oblasts in Ukraine. Forget Flanders, this would be the actual “corner of a foreign field” where young lives are squandered in an obscure cause. It’s a callow and adolescent bloodthirstiness, and in it we can see how strong the idea of the rules-based order and its defence has become – so strong, indeed, that it can now overawe all the anti-war cultural tropes that each of us grew up with.
But there is nothing hard and fast about any of these supposed international commitments, and honouring them has nothing to do with patriotism. The British military, and the pundits who plead its cause, are too willing to trade in these pieties, and, worse still, in the sinister idea that there are deeper obligations that transient and frivolous civilian politicians cannot appreciate. They should be reminded that the British Army has no independent honour, commitments, priorities or obligations of its own; it is a tool in the hands of the British people – and nothing more.
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If the tory government let the navy and RAF get away with disobeying a request, which should have been turned into a direct order, then we are living in a very dangerously undemocratic country. The military serve the elected government. Seems the wokists in the senior military echelons have gained control. This way danger lies. Civil war with cometh.
The government doesn’t serve the people and the electable part is just a facade. There’s no reason to expect the military to be any different. The population is already treated as a threat otherwise there wouldn’t be such a need for surveillance and control.
There is a great deal of sensible and interesting comment on this site. There is also, as with any thoughtful, thought provoking medium, a certain amount of nonsense. This article falls into the latter category. ‘Militarism’ when the British Army has been cut to ribbons, cannot even put one full strength Armoured Brigade in the field, let alone an armoured division? ‘Militarism’ when the Armed Forces are not even in control of their own recruiting; recruits take over a year to be processed so far too many simply give up and find a different job? The evidence produced is flimsy; an article in the Mirror that the RAF ‘would’ refuse to fly Channel migrants to Ascension Island; more flimsy evidence from Reuters: ‘Patel told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that the military had not made a final decision about whether it would be involved in such operations. “The @RoyalNavy and the @RoyalMarines will not be using push back tactics in the English Channel, although a military commander will retain the existing ability to instruct Border Force to use them when appropriate,” It’s all a bit silly, a bit of a wind up, but an interesting one so many thanks for… Read more »
Yep the stupidity of our politicians is far more deadly.
You could improve that ratio by declining to comment on conflicts, they are clearly not appreciated, which is a shame because on other topics you actually contribute useful opinions.
Comments by so many, now, in hindsight so prescient, regarding the panic over a simple common cold coronavirus were and still are not appreciated by the majority in this country.
Does that, in your view, mean that we, I, in the absence of countervailing authoritative and convincing evidence should desist?
Or should I simply desist because you and a handful of others disagree; bigotry, often a harbinger of fascism?
Did you actually read/understand what I wrote.
You wish me to desist if, without producing any supporting evidence, you disagree; bigotry, pure and simple.
Bigotry: obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group. You demonstrate your bigotry of the topic of Russia. You seem to be unable to carry out civilised discourse without resorting to name calling. What we have here is a difference of opinion. I am of the opinion that Zelensky is no democrat. I am not pro Putin. Zelensky has a couple of weeks left as the legal president of Ukraine. He has refused to hold elections, has shut down many formerly legitimate outlets of opinion, he imprisons numerous people, he has proscribed the language of a large number of his citizens (and imprisons people who use it). These actions are what dictators have historically done, including Russians during the years of Communism. His regime has overseen numerous terrorist actions on Russian soil including assassinations and he has used in massive quantities the very same weapons that he accused Russia of using illegally in the early days of the conflict. America supplied these weapons to Ukraine and that is undisputed. None of this excuses Russia if it is found independently to have done the same,… Read more »
A spade is a spade; a bigot is a bigot. If you do not enjoy the label, try opening your mind to the evidence. When all the evidence, all the informed opinion, shows quite clearly that Putin is an aggressive adventurist with ambitions that go way beyond Ukraine and no actual evidence is provided to the contrary, simply one eyed and partial conjecture, then those contrarians who believe that Putin is, in fact, the victim of aggression must be, quite simply, deluded bigots. Putin has killed hundreds of thousands, I am not inclined to dance around the matter to spare the sensitivities of a few thin skinned commentators on here. When arguably the world’s greatest experts on Russian leaders speaks, it is worth listening: ‘Putin is now set on hegemony over the Soviet and Romanov empires. At a dinner at his Kuntsevo dacha at the end of the Second World War, Stalin called for a map and approvingly reviewed his conquests, pointing with his pipe: “Let’s see what we’ve got then,” he told his henchmen. “In the north, everything’s all right; Finland wronged us so we moved the frontier back; Baltic states which were Russian territory in old times are… Read more »
Who is Montefiore.
Enough said.
If only.
If you do not know who Montefiore is, you cannot be a well informed, balanced commentator on Russia….and you, quite clearly, are not……
This article also claims that ‘pre-emptive conscription is now being seriously discussed for the sake of two eastern oblasts in Ukraine’ based on an article in the DT. The government, ministry of defence, military should be and often are engaged in contingency planning. The idea of conscription, abhorred by the military for all kinds of good reasons, will fall into that category. But, if we care to raise ourselves above the partial scrum of comments on this site, we and the author may plainly see that, in the wider world, there is no illusion about events now unfolding in Ukraine. ‘(Putin)’s not crazy at all, he’s projecting a vision of Russia that he was brought up with that many people in Russia still adhere to – a vision of the Russian state as an empire that has to expand, and expansion is how you judge leaders,” (Montefiore) ‘Ukrainian history gives us something more interesting than a mere counter-narrative to empire. We can find Ukrainian national feeling at a very early date. In contemporary Ukraine, though, the nation is not so much anti-colonial, a rejection of a particular imperial power, as post-colonial…’ (Snyder) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine (twice) is simple colonialism,… Read more »
By the wider world, do you mean NATO countries? I don’t believe that China, India, Iran, much of Asia, Africa, and S America see it as anything other than a US demonstration of (wilting) hegemony through a poor unfortunate proxy.
You are, of course, entitled to believe what you will.
Without anything to back up your beliefs, not many outside of a few fellow travellers on here are likely to share them.
The massive growth of BRICS membership (currently Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates) does rather support my argument. This was specifically created to counterbalance to traditional Western (dollar) influence (hegemony) on trade.
What does the guy who coined the term BRIC in 2001 have to say?
‘…if any of the BRICS countries – especially China and India – undertook significant financial reforms to achieve (the diminishing of the dollar’s dominance), their currencies would almost certainly become more widely used.
But if they continue to limit themselves to complaining about the dollar and musing in the abstract about a shared BRICS currency, they are unlikely to achieve much.’
Baron O’Neill of Gatley
One man’s opinion is noi a fact nor evidence of anything. The fact that he coined the term doesnt make him an authority but bringing up such a tenuous link is evidence that you are clutching at straws.
As I say, pure bigotry…….
Notably the Russian autocrat has no intentions regarding the Isle of Wight.
Whereas, as our Lord Foreign Secretary has stated publicly, NATO has intentions towards Ukraine, ‘integrating it into NATO’s architecture’.
There’s apparently no financial difficulty in supplying expensive weapons, often single use, to the armed forces of another country. And ‘for as long as it takes’.
The idea that no British government could survive a failure to come to the aid of Poland is hilarious given Cameron’s and Clegg’s Coalition government’s acknowledgement that Tibet is now part of China after the Chinese invasion in 1959.
Conflating the freedom of Poland, guaranteed by the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, with that of Tibet, guaranteed by the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, is a bit out of date by now; probably a bit silly. Czarist Russia disintegrated in 1917.
‘The clean-slate doctrine, which emerged during the latter half of the nineteenth century, rejects all of the major premises of the universal succession theory. Under a “modified clean-slate” theory, which takes into account the realities of international law, newly independent states are not required to honour treaties entered into by their predecessors,’
Lucinda Love
Drivel. Ukraine isn’t a cohesive country. Any glance at the history shows it didn’t exist till the soviet federalisation of the russian empire. Certainly it’s of zero concern to us, and the Ukrainians should be responsible for relations with their neighbours, not us.
Some will maintain that Ukraine’s nationhood is debatable; ‘drivel’ it certainly isn’t, as Professor of History Timothy Snyder of Yale University points out: ‘The city of Kyiv did not exist in ancient times, but it is very old—about half a millennium older than Moscow. It was probably founded in the sixth or seventh century, north of any territory seen by Greeks or controlled by Romans. In the ninth century, a group of Vikings known as the Rus arrived in Kyiv. In the late tenth century, a Viking named Valdemar took the city, with the help of a Scandinavian army. In 1240, the city fell to the Mongols; later, most of old Rus was claimed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then the largest state in Europe. in 1569, after the Lithuanian dynasty died out, a Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was formalized, and the territories of Ukraine were placed under Polish jurisdiction. This was a crucial change. After 1569, Kyiv was no longer a source of law but an object of it—the archetypal colonial situation. It was colonization that set off Ukraine from the former territories of Rus. In Ukraine, literary Polish emerged victorious over the Ukrainian vernacular, becoming the language of the commercial… Read more »
Yr knowledge of South Russia history is slightly less impressive than Putin’s.
By all means take that up with Professor Snyder, who wrote the book.
It would be great if you would share details of your book on the subject with us?
With respect, this man’s learned assessment and research of the war in Ukraine is more convincing than the viewpoint you set out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
He is the guy who predicted, in articles and lectures, that Putin would not invade Ukraine.
He was wrong, twice.
‘Mearsheimer “goes too far. Putin’s decision to invade was very individualist – much of the Russian elite itself were caught by surprise and shock – and so the Russian leader bears the moral blame for the carnage; not the West.’
Kaplan
Not sure why Monro is getting so many down votes for this reply? It’s a balance response to an interesting article. Also the RN/RAF wouldn’t ‘refuse’ a direct order, they would present a compelling case why they were not the best ‘agency’ to carry out a specific mission. The military have limited assets and when they take up a commitment there must be a naturally end point or goal. That wouldn’t be the case with Channel or Ascension.
e.g. Why should the RN patrol the Channel if they are only providing a ferry service for the next x years?
The author asks: Does the United Kingdom still get to decide whether it goes to war or not?
The Suez Crisis showed long ago that that decision rests with Washington DC.
If the British Army is poorly prepared even for a defensive war, it would be prudent to ensure that we are not in a pre-war world.
The Falklands demonstrated that comment to be incorrect.
Sometimes we decide whether the U.S. goes to war: Syria 2013.
We are not in a pre-war world; Ukraine has been invaded (twice).
What changes, if any, would you make to how our military is used and funded?
I have no problem with the way that our military is used and funded.
I do have a problem with the scale of a land army now more correctly referred to as a militia, given its diminutive size.
I believe there may well be merit in a reorganisation of our Armed Services to resemble the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC).
The USMC has a long and glittering history, employs the same number of people as Britain’s entire Armed Forces, has aircraft carriers (which it calls something else) and twice as many aircraft as the R.A.F.
By shadowing much of USMC procurement, a great deal of our own problematic defence procurement system could be relinquished.
Efficiency savings from delayering, operational effectiveness improved by a great deal more delegation down to Ship/Regiment/Battalion/Squadron level (where a lot more authority, including recruitment, previously resided) would provide the enhanced size and effectiveness of our three services that this country now requires; much more bang for the long suffering taxpayer’s bucks.
Who do you think should be used to defend our borders against the daily invasions?
‘Border Force’
‘Article 25 of the Convention does allow states to prevent passage in their territorial waters, including to prohibit crime, smuggling, or breaching immigration rules. If such tactics were to put vessels in danger, the obligations for search and rescue still apply.
But any return of a vessel to a state’s territorial waters would require that state’s consent.’
Commentators who suggest pushback tactics could be incompatible with the UK’s international obligations for search and rescue, say this is because vessels containing migrants in the English Channel have generally been small and vulnerable to danger through pushback tactics.’
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/is-turning-back-migrants-at-sea-compatible-with-international-law/
Use of the Royal Navy to turn the boats back, without the consent of France, would cause an international incident.
I like the Rwanda plan. £3,000 and a free ‘plane ticket?
The Border Force don’t seem to be doing very well.
I don’t much care who does it, as long as it gets done.
We are being invaded. How long will we just tolerate this for? Never mind an international incident, it’s a bloody national incident.
Of course, powerful people here and elsewhere seem quite happy with massive illegal and legal immigration, and sadly there are millions of useful idiot citizens in this country and others who go along with it.
Offshoring will work.
I wish I shared your optimism. Labour will cancel it and we will have at least 5 years more invasions, possibly 10. Legal immigration will continue as before, or more. Present company excepted, I often wonder whether western civilisation deserves to survive.
You are in good company:
‘Lord Carrington, whose career in public life lasted more than 60 years, liked to greet friends by exclaiming: ‘Isn’t everything awful!’
‘‘I have always hated the Conservative Party,’ Lord Carrington told me towards the end of his life.
‘Nothing made me hate it more than being chairman of it. Individual members, all right. Collective, so awful. Look at it now. Going down the plughole.’
Christopher Lee
P.S. This is how Thatcher dealt with the civil service:
‘Carrington recalled a dinner at the start of Thatcher’s premiership when she decided to have all Permanent Secretaries and their wives to dinner at No 10.
He recalled: ‘This was unheard of, never been done before and those involved were extremely gratified. Iona [Carrington’s wife] and I were asked to dinner – all went well until Thatcher rose to speak. She had them in the palm of her hand, but then told them they were not the sort of people who got things done, that she was not going to put up with any obstruction with what she wanted to do, and they must get on with it.’
Some things are awful, others not – that’s normal. What I find maddening is that we seem to be throwing it all away for no good reason.
Democracy: the least worst form of government.
Sadly
Democracy needs careful nurturing and constant vigilance to work, above all from the people. That has been absent.
‘The RAF then ruled out the idea of flying them to Ascension Island.’—My logbook tells me that it was July ’75 when I was called off ‘standby crew’ to fly to Ascension Island when the Civil war kicked off in Angola following independence. 8hrs 15 mins flying time, and what a Godforsaken hole it was. A volcanic pimple surrounded by a vast ocean.
Do not forget the mass murdering psychopath Blair started this with the claims of what actually was a non existent genocide in Kosovo (Serbia). In Blair’s mind a bit of fighting between Muslims and Christians equalled Genocide because Christians were winning and defending their homeland. The word genocide was then used to bomb the hell out of Belgrade, an obvious war crime if there are such things. Serbia was simply the warm up act for all his further idiot wars, namely Afghanistan and of course famously Iraq over non existent WMD. Having fled Afghanistan as shamed idiots naturally we are walking in to a proxy war over the Ukraine/Russia border, part of the world we of course we have zero strategic interest in.
Absolutely spot on! At last someone willing to tell the truth about the West being deceived into backing the wrong horse, time and again. The Christian Serbs have been in the front line against Islam’s attempts to invade Europe for centuries, and well remember “Devsirme”, the “child tribute” demanded by the Ottoman Turks, who came to Christian Balkan villages threatening to slaughter them all unless they handed over the strongest little boys and prettiest little girls as “child tribute”, to be dragged away as child sex slaves for the sultans. This went on for 300 years!
Is it any wonder the Christian Serbs felt horribly betrayed by the supposed Christian West backing the Muslims and punishing the Christians for resisting them, thanks to Blair and the Globalists? Is it any wonder that the Christian Serbs now actively encourage and facilitate Muslims to invade the West?
If only we could be sure that any decisions of the Government are based on a calm and rational analysis of any situation. Sadly it would seem we never get a straight story. Disinformation does not only come from so-called conspiract theorists, it emanates from all agents of officialdom. We have evidence now that we have been lied to, misdirected and poisoned over Covid, and now they are all jostling to avoid blame and point fingers elesewhere. Apparently it was all China’s fault despite the fact that the research was sponsored by America. We are being grandly stuffed by the environmental lobby and committed to ruinous actions by our own government which will almost guarantee our industrial decline and future povery and discomfort. We are being forced to kow-tow to discontents from abroad who don’t like us because we w successfully brought order to a large part of a world that was mired in tribal conflict. Sadly that order is breaking down as the world appears to be descending into tribalism – race against race, creed against creed, and now gender against the new synthetic genders. And now we are being whipped into war by people who are basing their… Read more »
Our intelligence agencies have in their possession strategy documents from inside the Kremlin which make plain Putin’s plans for colonial expansion; enslavement of less numerous nations.
They are also aware from the interrogation of recently apprehended Russian military overseas operations staff that sabotage activities by Russia on Western European territories are already in train.
Is that what they told you?
I think the phrase you are looking for is:
“Without anything to back up your beliefs, not many outside of a few fellow travellers on here are likely to share them.”
The Russians themselves have told us, either through leaked strategy documents or through interrogation: ‘While the 9th Directorate of the FSB’s Fifth Service Department for Operational Information prepared for the occupation of Ukraine from July 2021, the 11th Unit of the Department for Operational Information, responsible for Moldova, was assessing plans for the next round of operations under the direction of Major General Dmitry Milyutin. In November 2020, the FSB’s strategic objective in Moldova was to bring about ‘The full restoration of the strategic partnership between Moldova and the Russian Federation’ FSB Outline of Operational Aims and Means, 21 November 2021. ‘The strategy document…..authorship of the strategy document…….belongs to the Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a subdivision of Putin’s Presidential Administration, which was established five years ago. The rather innocuously named directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighboring countries that Russia sees as in its sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.’ http://www.en.kremlin.ru/structure/administration/departments ‘Poland’s internal security agency, the ABW, carried out searches in homes and businesses in Warsaw and Tychy on March 27 as part of its crackdown on the network, seizing 48,500 euros ($52,400) and $36,000 in cash, as well as computer data and mobile phones. ‘…hundreds of… Read more »
Is this the same intelligence that claims Russia blew up it’s own pipeline?
If you have evidence as to who blew up that pipeline, why not present it here?
If he such colonial ideas why didn’t he expand in to Georgia from south Ossetia? I think the intelligence is up there with that suggesting Iraq has WMD or that Serbia committed genocide in Kosovo.
Perhaps “Cross-Border Cooperation” was meant to be taken literally.
If the Russian government is such a threat to the UK, why would they wait for the West to go through a weapons development and rearmament cycle that will take years? Yet that is what our politicians would have us believe to justify expenditure in this area.
Why did we think that the USSR was a threat to Britain? ‘The UK was a priority target for the Soviet Union in the 1970s because it was the only state in western Europe that was part of Nato’s military structure. France had left in 1966……..106 probable nuclear targets in 1972 24 towns and cities: Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Cardiff, Manchester, Southampton, Leeds, Newcastle/Gateshead, Bristol, Sheffield, Swansea, Hull, Teeside, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Stoke-on-Tent, Belfast, Huddersfield, Sunderland, Gillingham, Rochester, Chatham, Maidstone. 14 centres of government: Central London, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Catterick, York, Preston, Cambridge, Dover, Reading, Salcombe, Brecon, Kidderminster, Armagh. 23 RAF bases: Scampton, Waddington, Honington, Wittering, Marham, Coningsby, Lossimouth, Finningley, Bedford, Kinloss, Manston, Wattisham, Cottesmore, Wyton, St Mawgan, Machrihanish, Leeming, Valley, Brawdy, Coltishall, Yeovilton, Leuchars, Binbrook. 14 USAF bases: Alconbury, Bentwaters, Woodbridge, Wethersfield, Lakenheath, Upper Heyford, Fairford, Boscombe Down, Pershore, Greenham Common, MIldenhall, Sculthorpe, Cranwell, Lyneham. 10 radar stations: Flylingdales, Boulmer, Patrington, Bawdsey, Neatished, Buchan, Saxa Vord, Staxton Wold, Feltwell, Orford Ness. 8 military control centres: Northwood, Plymouth, Pitreavie, Fort Southwick, High Wycombe, Ruislip, Bawtry, West Drayton. 7 naval communications centres: Rugby, Criggion, Anthorn, Inskip, New Waltham, Londonderry, Thurso. 6 naval bases: Faslane, Coulport, Holy Loch, Rosyth, Portsmouth, Devonport.’ ‘For Western countries, for… Read more »
Exactly! Meanwhile, beyond Russia….there’s an extremely powerful country that is playing a very long game indeed – one that thinks democracy is a virus…..
Look at NATO expansion from his point of view….instead of portraying him as a cartoon villain constantly. Whatever happened to diplomacy…….
Putin could not give a flying fig for what you call ‘NATO expansion’ but which is, in fact, sovereign nations exercising their sovereign rights under the Helsinki Accords of 1975, ratified by the Russian Federation in the NATO-Russia Founding Act (NRFA), signed in Paris on 27 May 1997. ‘Respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states and their inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security, the inviolability of borders and peoples’ right of self-determination as enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act and other OSCE documents.’ Do not misrepresent me. Putin is most certainly not a cartoon villain. He is a calculating colonial adventurist who wishes to restore the Russian Empire by enslaving his neighbours. The whole idea of ‘NATO expansion’ is a silly myth exploited by either self serving or delusional Putinist chauvinist running dogs. ‘Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov declared that it would be unacceptable for ‘NATO’s infrastructure to move towards Russia’. Such an action, he added, would be ‘the real red line’. Yet at the same time, negotiations were taking place that would culminate in the NATO-Russia Founding Act (NRFA), signed in Paris on 27 May 1997. This Act, which paved the way for cooperation between the… Read more »
But it isn’t, any more than the British Parliament or the civil service or any important institution is in the hands of the British public.
They are trying to drag us into war and that has about as much to do with international law as lockdowns, masks and covid jabs had to do with public health.
A small group of powerful people have decided that is what they want and they’re going to do all they can to get it.
Well said, sir. It is a deeply worrying situation. ‘Not in my name’ has never been so apt. The war-mongering going on is horrifying. Any sane person would seek friendship and understanding with the world’s largest Christian country, not war. Unfortunately we are not governed by sane people. This past weekend was Orthodox Easter, a huge event at all levels of Russian society, including the leadership. Church turnout of young and old alike would put any western country to shame. Soon will come Victory day, a day where ordinary Russians remember their terrible losses and the sacrifice of their loved ones, carrying photos of the ‘eternal regiment’.
The idea that ‘general staffs, systems of alliances and military schedules spinning totally out of control, taking from statesmen any real powers of decision during those fateful weeks in July 1914’ is just as much a complete misreading of the decisions taken by British politicians in July and August 1914 as it is of today. Douglas Newton’s The Darkest Days explains why this is so. Our Lord Foreign Secretary seems to be channelling Sir Edward Grey. The dingbats with only a modicum of military experience are doing a good job of emulating Churchill as First Sea Lord (described by Margot Asquith as ‘pathetically ungrown-up’) in July 1914. Just as Churchill shouldn’t have been trusted with playing with toy ships in his bath (Newton explains why), so these people who want conscription and a pre-war world, and who get stiff over Britain developing hypersonic missiles and treble-sonic fighter planes (even though local authorities cannot fund public toilets or afford to weed flower beds in towns on the South Coast), shouldn’t be in charge of any territory greater than an allotment. The media outlets of today are as rabid for war as some of the newspaper magnates were in 1914. The Daily… Read more »
The title of J. Sorel’s article led me to believe it would be about treasonous anti-white Globalist politicians destroying the Armed Forces by savage budget cuts for years, sending them on fool’s errands to be maimed and slain abroad, leaving our own country dangerously unprotected, while encouraging millions of hostile alien men of military age to swarm into Britain, and placing members of that same hostile alien cult into our military, giving them all our military secrets, while allowing vindictive legal harassment of our veterans, in order to drive Indigenous Brits out of the Armed Forces.
But his discussion led in a different direction, raising a suspicion of fascist militarism by the Armed Forces themselves, which doesn’t ring true at all, in my opinion.
The few generals warning us to “prepare for war” are just part of the Globalist Cabal, opposed to the generals who have been warning about the decimation of the Armed Forces for decades.
It sounds like the Evil Communist Brazilian Dictator & Failed Assassin Lula & his pet Communist judge warning about past “right-wing military dictatorships”.
Didn’t realise we had a British Military™ any more. Thought it was just a branch of the US military, and a very small one at that. Rules Based Order, doncha know (their rules, their orders)…
Every day in every way this government confirms we are the 51st State of USA! Its shaming what is happening in this country – we will shortly be at war with Russia or anyone else the yanks are feeling miffed about. The multi polar world cannot come along fast enough.
Nothing spun out of control in 1914. The so-called central powers had a defensive alliance with each other and there was an offensive alliance between France and Russia for an eventual war of revanche against Germany. Britain was an informally allied to the latter. After the murder of the Austrian heir apparent by Serbian terrorists with tacit support of the Serbian state, Austria-Hungary desired a war with Serbia in order to rid itself of Serbian designs against it. Attempts to localize this conflict failed because the Russian Tsar was pressured into declaring general mobilization, ie, against both Germany and Austria, by the Russian war party. Before anything happened in Germany, France was asked if it was willing to remain neutral in the upcoming conflict which it denied. Hence, the German army mobilized according to its plan for a war against France and Russia at the same time (the other option would have been a Franco-Russian invasion). While the German armies had already been set in motion, there was an 11th hour rumour that Britain would pressure France into remaining neutral if German troops didn’t cross the French border. Because of this, Wilhelm II. demanded that military movements in the west… Read more »
“The German General Staff of 1914, in all its bulimia and hysteria”? Is there a meaning for ‘bulimia’ that no dictionary lists?
Yes indeed – we are cannon fodder when we are not useless eaters. They should change the name of of the Ministry of Defence back to the Ministry of War – mercenaries for hire by the predator class.
They should change it to Ministry of Defenceless……
I could not fight in any of the wars going on at the moment, even if I weren’t too old, as I’d be on the wrong side. All quite apart from the fact that I now believe that fighting wars is evil! So I’m a pacifist – or, rather, fighting other sorts of wars (against evil when and wherever I see it, which is now far too often).
What a strange article that flies in the face of all the evidence and uses a couple of anecdotes in support of the supposed “£disobedience” of the armed forces.
My feeling is that rather than the build up to WW1, it is the unpreparedness of the ’30s that is somewhat more apposite.