Can Soft Power Ever Trump Hard Power?

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

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”.

RAF Akrotiri Too Important To Lose

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

I spent two years patrolling the British Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus at a pivotal time in world history. It began with attacks by Colonel Gadhaffi and the fall of the Berlin Wall, but was followed by the Gulf War. Shortly before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, I was honoured to host the Secretary of State for Defence, Tom King, at my base (see below).

At the time, Cyprus was considered to be an unimportant side-show compared with the British Army of the Rhine and Northern Ireland. However, each Monday I was briefed on the changing security situation in the Balkans, Trans-Caucasus and Middle East. The briefers were listening in to communications acroos the region and predicted all the wars that took place in the 1990s, sharing that information with the Pentagon. When the Gulf War began, RAF Akrotiri was used as a forward mounting base for British Forces and apart from providing security with my armoured cars, i also had to deploy a tank troop forward with 7 Armoured Brigade.

Thirty five years after the Gulf War, when all our bases in Germany have closed and Northern Ireland is relatively quiet, we are seeing again the vital national importance of the British bases in Cyprus. Saddam Hussein was a conventional opponent and did not manage to attack our bases in 1990. However, Iran is an asymmetric adversary with highly sophisticated weaponry and as we have already seen, they have the means and capability to prolong this war if it comes to national survival.

Just to put this into context, Iran is three times the size of Ukraine and its population is close to 90 million – it is not Gaza. I have seen the modelling results of a US-Iran conflict and it did not look good for the world. As we discovered in Libya when the French Prime Minister declared that Gadhaffi would be toppled by April, air power alone does not achieve regime change and will only lead to chaos unles you back it up with boots on the ground. That means blood, treasure and time. Sadly, the two British hospitals in Cyprus have both been demolished. Lets hope that we don’t need to build another one.

Think To The Finish

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

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.

No Such Thing As Non-Combat Troops

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

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.

North Atlantic Treaty Conference

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

The Conference in Munich this weekend that has attracted World Leaders to speak about their security concerns and in particular the North Atlantic partnership, is not in fact a NATO conference. That happened the day before in a low-key affair in Brussels between most of the NATO Ministers of Defence (notably Pete Hesgeth, the US secretary of War, did not attend).

The most interesting aspect of these past five days is the press conference given by the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday evening. After his introduction, he was quizzed by 14 different news and media outlets, including some big hitters such as the Wall Street Journal and AFP. Two Russian News in Exile reporters asked questions as did two that broadcast in Ukraine and journalists from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Turkey and Japan. The only interest from London was Reuters’ Brussels based European Affairs Editor, who asked about the rebranding of NATO’s northern flank activities into “Arctic Sentry”.

Understandably, the main undercurrent of the conference was Rutte’s perspective of President Trump’s recent announcements, including when and by how much the USA will reduce its footprint in Europe. However, the greatest challenge to the Secretary General was the Japanese reporter, who asked specifically about the Chinese threat to the Arctic (which it does not border).

It may appear that a lot has changed since the US Secretary of Defence, Jim Mattis gave a joint press conference in Brussels with the then Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, exactly nine years ago today and said thank you for “the warm welcome back to my second home”. However, in March 2003, the UK MoD published a document that suggested a number of possible shocks, including a “Future US administration withdraws co-operation from international bodies such as the UN and NATO”.

We were warned!

Lessons From The Korean War

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

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

Washington’s Original Requests For UK Troops In Southern Afghanistan

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

Three topics relevant to British Armed Forces tempted me to provide some context this week. However, I will save my observations about UN Failures, Chinese Security and Defence and The World’s Policeman for later in the month. Instead, I will concentrate on reinforcing my previous post about the false accusation that the USA never asked for military support in Afghanistan with evidence from two archival reports.

The first is drawn from the MoD lessons learned report from Afghanistan in 2002. “Following the defeat and removal of the Taleban regime in late 2001, the UK main effort focused on the leadership of ISAF to stabilise Kabul and ensure the meeting of the Loya Jurga in June. Meanwhile, US forces concentrated on the destruction of the remaining enemy pockets of resistance, particularly in the south-east, culminating in Operation Anaconda launched on 1 March 2002. The US was surprised at the ferocity of this battle and lost 8 men KIA… On 15 March 2002, the US formally requested the deployment of a UK fighting force and three days later [our] Secretary of State announced the deployment of a battle group, based on 45 Commando Royal Marines to come under tactical command of Commander 10 US Mountain Division.” In this role, Task Force Jacana as it was known, undertook four deliberate operations on the front line before it was withdrawn in July. There were many tactical lessons identified, but strategically, the mission was a huge success as it sent a powerful message to both friendly and hostile nations and allowed the Loya Jurga trouble-free progress against a background of relative security.

The second substantial US request came in 2005. Up to this point, British Armed Forces had run a very successful Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the north of the country. Washington now asked London if it would take over the PRT in Helmand Province as it was having difficulty gaining traction outside of the provincial capital. I deployed in October with the planning team to Kandahar, where a Royal Air Force Harrier flight was based. My task was to map out the urgent operational requirements for soldiers, vehicles, helicopters and the costs of third line support. There were also officers there to advise on reconstruction and economic alternatives to opium production. At that time, it was envisaged that we would send the Royal Anglian Regiment in 2006. However, this was changed to Headquarters 16 Air Assault Brigade together with a Parachute battalion. The resulting combat operation has been well-covered by the media in the past fortnight.

My final thought on this is to recognise the loss and sacrifices of all NATO nations in Afghanistan. I was a member of a guard of honour in Kandahar to say farewell to a Chinook crew that had been shot down. It was not just US and UK troops in that Ramp Parade saluting the dead as they were carried onto the C-17. All the national contingents were represented. To denigrate their contribution, as we heard last week, really is beyond the pale.

Helmand Task Force Planning Group in Kandahar 2005

A Little Off The Front Line

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

When I wrote the chapter on the UK’s response to 9/11 in my first book, the UK government asked me to remove six passages that, in their opinion, compromised British security. Their argument was that I had used privileged information that was classified as confidential or above. However, when I demonstrated that all these stories had already been published in the media and were available in open source material, the MoD relented and changed their tone.

The one story that they asked me to remove even though they accepted it was not secret, was about British casualties in Afghanistan before we deployed Helmand Task Force (Operation Herrick) in 2006. This is important now because the US President has claimed American Allies were “A little off the front line” and has disparaged our contribution by saying “We have never really asked anything of them”.

The code name of the operation before Herrick was Veritas and this covered other deployments such as Oracle, Fingal and Jacana. In the first months of Veritas, Washington requested our help in many ways and the Pentagon sent two officers to London to work with us to identify the best mix of assets. The British contribution included: Special Forces; Cruise Missiles and Air-to-Air Refuelling; 3 Commando Brigade, which helped clear the Tora Bora Caves and Headquarters 3rd Division, which established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul. The idea that soldiers who worked on projects such as the Provincial Reconstruction Teams were “a little off the front line” is meaningless because nowhere was safe in Afghanistan after the initial deployment. Improvised explosive devices, ambushes and missile attacks against vehicles and bases occurred throughout the country from 2002 onwards.

It is time that our contribution was properly acknowledged by our most important ally.

British Troops Deploying At Kabul Airport On Operation Veritas

Heavy Lifting and NATO Caveats

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

The US President has made an important point about NATO, but sadly he has articulated it badly, so it will lose its effect.

The important point is that unlike authoritarian regimes, political democracies cannot allow their troops to be sacrificed on military operations, so they attach national caveats, which constrain commanders in certain circumstances. This inevitably results in perceived unequal burden sharing.

I personally witnessed this when planning NATO operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. For example, in Baghdad, when I was Chief of Staff of the NATO Mission, there were only four countries that I could rely upon to deploy outside the green zone. However, this was not an insurmountable problem because there was a regular gathering of NATO ambassadors, or their representatives, who would diplomatically help with any issue before it became a crisis.

History tells us that political caveats have always affected Allied military operations and capital cities have always interfered with a “long screwdriver”. There is no better example than the one I write about in Churchill’s Abandoned Prisoners, when there were more than 120,000 Allied troops in Siberia in 1919. Of all the contingents, the one that came with the strictest constraints was the US Army detachment of 9,000 soldiers. Despite President Wilson forbidding them from fighting at the front, they did display courage and bravery in abundance when protecting their section of the Trans-Siberian Railway, but they did not do as the Royal Marines and join the battle at the front.

Apart from this issue of hypocrisy, the President is wrong to tar all of NATO with the same brush for three further reasons. The first has been picked up by the Media immediately; it is highly disrespectful to the families of soldiers, sailors and air personnel from NATO Allies who were killed on US led operations since 9/11. Secondly, there are still several ongoing NATO missions that might be compromised by his words; for example the Allied Maritime Command in London looks after North Atlantic operations and the NATO Mission in Iraq is there to fight terrorism and prevent the return of Islamic State. Thirdly, it makes it much harder for his representatives in Brussels when they come cap-in-hand to fill posts in the well-established bartering process for Troop Contributing Nations serving with American formations.

We all know that America has done most of the heavy lifting for NATO since it was created, but they could not have tackled International Terrorism without their Allies, so it is not sensible to alienate them now.

NATO Mission in Iraq 2008

Arctic Security

Posted on by Rupert Wieloch

I have written before about my early experience with the ACE Military Force, when I patrolled inside the Arctic Circle as part of NATO’s northern flank protection mission, watched by Soviet Bear aircraft. Apart from three months winter warfare training in Northern Norway, we also took our tanks to Esbjerg, where I learned about Danish history at first hand. What impressed me particularly was the way Denmark rebuffed a megalomaniac bully in World War I and saved most of their Jewish community after Hitler invaded in World War II.

Danish DNA is one of the main constituents of British people, especially in the North East of England. We only have to look to the last century, when a Danish princess became Queen Consort of the United Kingdom, to see how close we are. And a wise Danish king, who ruled England one thousand years ago, gave us one of the most important freedoms ingrained in British law: a freeholder’s right to protect their crops and domestic animals from harm.

I have given talks about civil-military co-operation in Oslo and Stockholm and had the honour to command a courageous Danish detachment in Baghdad. So, it pains me to see the current dispute that is threatening to break the North Atlantic Alliance. The reasons why the international order that has lasted 80 years is failing to keep the peace are complex, but the proposed US land-grab of Denmark’s autonomous territory is a symptom, not a cause.

Trump’s justification for taking Greenland by force is similar to Argentina’s occupation of The Falklands, or Mussolini’s intimidation and invasion of Albania. It doesn’t help that Europe has neglected Arctic security since the Cold War and did nothing about the US intervention in Venezuela. But, history tells us that bullies cannot be appeased, so any unwelcome US seizure of territory belonging to a European sovereign state must be resisted.

British Tanks In Northern Norway