Rupert Wieloch

The military warning against metaphorically catching your hand in the mangle is attributed by some to the Chief of Defence Staff in 2001, when he was advising the Prime Minister about British involvement in Afghanistan. However, nine years earlier, General Sir Peter Inge had coined the term when he was Chief of the General Staff and had to advise the Government about a potential British Army deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The term is particularly apt at the moment with the war in the Gulf widening and escalating and no end in sight despite the bullish words in Washington. I have worked with the Pentagon and I am certain their considered advice about Iran’s military capability would have been comprehensive. The source of the underestimation in terms of enemy response, cultural strength and regime endurance comes from an out-of-touch diaspora and sycophantic elite.

The war is at a critical point with a potential US Marine landing this week (in the tradition of Derna in 1805). Will it be like Libya in March 2011 when France said the operation would be over in a matter of weeks, but it took more than eight months? Or will it end in humiliation like Vietnam and Afghanistan? Either way, we have already gone past the time when the World would have said it was the right course of action because the only winners now are authoritarian regimes like China and Russia.

Language in war is very important! I am always amazed how one side in a conflict can fall into the trap of motivating their enemy with foolish words. In World War II, when the British and Australian forces were besieged in Tobruk, Hitler’s apologist, William Joyce, also known as Lord Haw Haw, taunted the Garrison on the radio by asking: “When are you going to come out of your holes, you rats of Tobruk?” With this trite comment, he gave the disparate groups a sense of shared identity and stiffened their resolve, ensuring they forgot about their fleas and lice, diarrhoea and constipation. Not only did the Desert Rats become a legendary army, but the defenders of Tobruk withstood a greater number of air attacks than London during the Blitz and also inflicted the first defeat on the previously invincible German Blitzkrieg.

At the opposite end of the telescope, there are many wise sages who offer sensible advice to politicians. One whose work was used in London after 9/11 was the 19th century Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, who wrote: “The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.” The question in March 2026 is have we removed a tyrant, or created a million martyrs?

In my first book, I revealed what the UK contributed to American thinking after 9/11 (the worst ever terrorist attack on British people). The most important intervention was to delay the US military attacks in Afghanistan until Washington had built a multi-national coalition, similar to those constructed for the Korean War and the Liberation of Kuwait. This was not an easy task.

It certainly helped our cause that the North Atlantic Council declared that 9/11 was a breach of Article 5, treating it as an attack against all Members. In solidarity, the United Nations had also adopted Resolution 1368, calling on all States to bring to justice the perpetrators of the horrific attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. However, it still needed a huge amount of shuttle diplomacy and creative thinking to develop an agreed strategy.

In the discussions at the highest level in London, there was a tension between the advocates of “strategic patience” and those who were keen to “attack first and ask questions afterwards”. This was replicated in Washington where the hawkish Donald Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense disagreed with Colin Powell’s State Department. When the Prime Minister and a bevy of senior military officers travelled to Washington 10 days after the event, he managed to sway the argument in favour of building a coalition. We then had a frantic week when all the British Ambassadors were given the task of persuading foreign governments to make a contribution to the campaign. To my mind, the resulting coalition is one of the great diplomatic successes of world history. It stood firm until Washington pulled the plug 20 years later and should be used as a teaching example on International Relations university degrees.

As I wait patiently in Sri Lanka for a return flight to Blighty, I am seized by this question about the efficacy of soft power. A major part of the Strategic Defence Review in 2010 centred on Defence Diplomacy. The buzz words were “Down Stream Conflict Prevention”, which translated to a range of confidence-building initiatives from disarmament to deployed training assistance teams. However the Down Side was less hard power with huge cuts to the Army to pay for two new Aircraft Carriers and the supporting fleet ships (which have played no part in the latest Middle East crisis).

The prognosis is not good. Hard power is still King, with the advocates of soft power looking impotent. The key tenets of the Geneva convention and other military law books have been shredded. The UN’s agreed rules (minimum force, self-defence, impartiality and consent) have been ignored. And yet, through it all, HM King Charles III has today highlighted a soft power international institution of 56 member nations that has lasted the test of time and still speaks as a Force For Good.

Sri Lanka this week has epitomised the spirit of the Commonwealth by responding to a humanitarian SOS, while maintaining its independence and neutrality. I have found that Sril Lankans are immensely proud of their heritage, whether that is the ancient influences, or the Dutch, Potuguese and British eras. They stopped the Japanese advance after Hong Kong and Singapore surrendered in World War II and have very effective Armed Forces. But, as they raise their flag here each morning, they also act as a beacon to others by saying “don’t give up on soft power”.

Of all the principles of war, the one that springs to mind this weekend is the first, Selection and Maintenance of the Aim. Having worked at the military-strategic level, it is the one that causes most friction between senior military commanders and politicians. Perhaps this is the cause of the apparent rift this week between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US President over Operation Epic Fury.

Is this a case of 19th century gun-boat diplomacy on steroids, or merely a distraction to avoid scrutiny about the American Epstein Scandal and ICE deaths? Whatever it is, I do remember that after 9/11 (the worst terrorist attack on British people) there was a moral debate in England about assassination and regime change, both of which were, under British law, deemed illegal.

Those were the days when the West still advocated a rules-based, international order, in order to preserve Global peace. However, that no longer seems to be the Aim. Instead, we have a wish list of objectives, which appear to be leading to chaos, instability and inevitably a civil-war that will dwarf the recent conflict in Syria. As America found in Iraq and Afghanistan, the challenge is not achieving military victory, but winning the subsequent peace.

The pronouncement by a former Prime Minister that Britain should send non-combat troops to safe parts of Ukraine is very misleading. In the first place, we have all seen that no part of Ukraine is safe from Russian missile, or drone attacks – the front line is everywhere. More importantly, the notion that the British Army has non-combat troops is false. All British soldiers are first and foremost taught to fight; their secondary skill set might take them to different echelons, but logisticians, administrators, medics and mechanics must be able to pass their personal weapons test every year, as well as other battlefield competences.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that we should send British troops to Ukraine now to demonstrate to Russia that the West believes Ukraine must remain a free, independent country in Europe. Waiting for a ceasefire, as the current government suggests, only plays into Putin’s hands and allows him to keep advancing in the Donbas.

The talk about defence spending is also poorly articulated. We need politicians to translate 3.5% of GDP into meaningfulness (i.e. what it costs to send brigades, ships and aircraft to war and sustain them for two or three years). It is time to instil a readiness culture in Britain, including the reintroduction of national service for all British school-leavers.

I am looking forward to giving my talk on two iconic battles of the Korean War tomorrow evening. As we sit between the 75th anniversaries of the Inchon Landings and the Battle of Imjin, it is worth reflecting on four lessons from that three year war, which resulted in over 2 Million deaths.

The first lesson is how the Free World came together to fight an authoritarian regime that invaded its neighbour. We saw the same thing when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

The second is how President Truman said no when General MacArthur demanded that he should widen the war for all-out victory. Above all else, avoid nuclear Armageddon.

The third is about humanitarian operations to save refugees (the Miracle of Christmas) and prevent the forcible repatriation of prisoners when it is known they will be slaughtered (as happened to the Cossacks after World War II).

The fourth is how 73 years after the armistice, there is still no peace treaty and the Demilitarized Zone is the most heavily guarded frontier in the World. As MacArthur said: “There is no substitute for Victory”.

Each of these lessons is relevant to what is happening in Ukraine four years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion into its neighbour. If there is an armistice this year, we don’t have far to look for a precedent.

Centurion Tank At The Time Of The Korean War