The Old English First Foreign Policy

Part three of a guest essay by Owen Edwards

It may be depended on that there is no better security for peace between nations than the conviction that each must respect the other, that each is capable of defending itself, and that no insult or injury committed by the one against the other would pass unresented.

Palmerston

The first great and acknowledged object of national defence in this country, is to maintain such a superior naval force at home, that even the united fleets of France and Spain may never be masters of the Channel.

Pitt the Elder

The Attainment of Peace

How, then, to achieve peace? Peace is often achieved by war – but not always, and how much better for all of us when this is so.

Consider our quote here from Palmerston. Peace between nations does not exist where imbalance between them exists; or if it does, it exists because the weak accept the suzerainty of the stronger, no matter how politely put. The strong will naturally press their interest, seeking advantageous terms on trade and so forth; the weak will resist within their power but then must bow. This is often deeply regrettable; Constantine XI is luminous near-six centuries later, and must stand as one of the heroes of Europe, yet he lost. Sometimes, the high tide crests and turns, and Alfred triumphs and Guthrum knows a wisdom greater than his gods, but this is ordinarily not the case. Strength wins out, and the purpose of a state in this context is to gain and maintain enough strength to achieve its aims – to ensure that no insult against it goes unresented.

There are two means to achieve this strength. One, by alliance, we have considered already. The other, by arming, is broached implicitly by Palmerston and explicitly by Chatham. We must, then, turn to a matter thornier and more labyrinthine even than foreign policy – its hard-eyed cousin, defence policy.

Britain is, in the midst of rising global danger, disarming itself; this is a feat virtually unknown to the ages. Even in cases of impending disaster and pursuant defeat this is scarcely recorded. France rearmed in the 1930s, designing the best tanks in the world and maintaining an enormous army; Constantine called for aid from all Europe, and even took in a renegade Ottoman Prince; Alfred did not come to rest at Athelney, drain the marshes and build a road for the Great Heathen Army, but instead gathered what men he could and founded a depot of strength. If any nation knows it may risk danger, it arms; it does not arm beyond capacity, if it is sensible; but it ensures that it can protect its homeland and its immediate interests, so far as this in its power. Yet Britain disarms – which we must not take as proof that there is no global danger, but that British elites do not hold to the common store of experience, or that they act in different interests altogether.

To protect our interests, to keep open the sea and air lanes so vital to our survival, Britain must be able to prevent paramountcy of any rival. This is not an expensive luxury, even if it seems so in times of peace; it is the essence of that peace. That peace is maintained by knowledge that any breach will incur severe consequences – that even victory will be tainted by crippling loss. Therefore, Britain must arm, and must recruit – not to conquer the world, but to achieve lucid and clearly-defined aims. Our purely defensive aims require a Navy and Air Force able to either wholly repel invasion or make attack so costly as to destroy its appeal; our global commitments mean we must be able to sail to the protection of dependencies such as the Falklands or, God willing, the Chagos Islands, to aid in lesser degree the protection of our Indo-Pacific allies (particularly our sister nations in Australia and New Zealand), and to be able to field a mobile land force that can strongly discourage the further extension of war in Europe itself.

It should be said, before proceeding, that alliance systems now – after the Cold War – have a distinctive flavour, with allies tending to hyper-specialise and rely on integrated forces leaning on each specialism. Think of the makeup of NATO fleet exercises involving Britain, where it is accepted that Britain will need to rely on its allies for escorts for the carrier force, or consider France’s specialism in logistics, or indeed note that Britain has a whole Army brigade dedicated to training Third World allied militaries.

This is a natural development given the vast increases in technological complexity and therefore cost over the last century, and of course it is not wholly new to Britain’s experience: in the Coalitions against France, Britain paid the money and provided a fleet, but the money went to powers who could fight France by land or who could provide ports for our navy. We ended those wars with an expanded Army, but scarcely a world-beater.

Yet there is a false security in relying on such arrangements; if we rely on a partner for a very niche but vital specialism, then we are beholden to them, and are fixed to a “permanent alliance”. It is a difficult financial and cultural circle to square, but Britain must ultimately be able to guarantee its own security by itself, at the very least; no alliance, not even with the United States, can be trusted for this.

As this section closes, I imagine that someone may complain that building alliance systems and arming ourselves and our allies has not prevented war before – and indeed we must discuss war before we close. But it is worth considering the lessons from history so regularly misapplied here. Was the Great War caused by everyone arming too much and relying too much on alliance systems, so that everyone was dragged in?

Well, it cannot be simply this: Belgium wasn’t rapidly arming and was in no alliance system; Italy switched its commitments. More than these caveats, though, Britain was dragged into the War precisely because the Central Powers, particularly Germany, did not think that Britain meant her commitments to France and to the continental balance of power - just as Hitler doubted her in 1939. This may demonstrate a failure of communication on Britain’s part – but it cannot be that it was too interested in balance of power. Britain’s policy in opposing German expansionism was right and wise; its execution failed in prevention, and the price of necessary containment thereafter was fatally high. None of this proves that Britain should not have armed itself, or that it should not have formed alliance systems to contain the burgeoning European suprapower: it proves we should have done these better.

This is a guest essay by Owen Edwards, who writes over at The New Scrapbook. Subscribe below!