Umm, not the 1st of April yet...

 

(We are here. Infidels are here, here and here. Apostates over there. Good. Points? Questions?)

Those kray-zee Iranians.

Just when Christmas television looked like getting everyone down, up popped the comedy act that is North Korea* to entertain us with their choreographed grief (though believe me, if I were living in Pyongyang, I'd have cried and wailed with the best of them just in case someone decided that I had been insufficiently upset and felt that a little reeducation was in order.)

Not to be outdone by their former colleagues in the Axis-of-Evil, Iranian Admiral Habibollah Sayyari says it would be "very easy" for his navy to shut down the Strait of Hormuz (SoH) if the nasty west (and especially the nasty EU led by the confounded British, whose hand is behind everything bad in the Islamic Republic, I'm reliably informed) has the temerity to impose oil sanctions on Iran for its repeated violations of the NPT, which the IAEA noted in their 18 Nov 11 Resolution. And here's a nice piece from the good people at APM's Marketplace - they do a great daily podcast, too.

Excellent, certainly a move that's all about the spirit of the season, and likely to bring everyone together and allow us all to get along better and all of that. 

But is it feasible?

(Ah. Rather narrow then.)

The strait is about 34nm across at it's narrowest point, and more importantly, the commercial traffic goes through the two 2nm corridors marked on this helpful map. And given the major Iranian naval base at Bandar Abbas is nice and close, in principle Iran's two naval arms - IRIN and the IRGC(N) - could make a stab at "closing" the SoH if they so chose. However, this overlooks a couple of things.

First, legality. Such a blockade would be illegal (states have the right to peacefully sail through straits worldwide) - something established in customary international law and in the 1948 ICJ Judgement in the Corfu Channel case - unless it was an act of war. An Iranian declaration of war against the rest of the world seems somewhat unlikely, and so in the absence of a UNSCR allowing for Iran to close the SoH (inconceivable), then the Iranians would be acting illegally.

Second, actual capability. Does Iran really want to take on the US Navy and her allies in a shooting match in the SoH whether on the water or from shore based missile and artillery batteries (or both?)? I can't see it - the Iranians could get lucky and cause some damage to naval vessels escorting oil tankers or patrolling the Straits - but the risk of retaliation sinking the rest of your fleet (or worse, starting a broader war) is such that you'd have to be nuts to try it. And this blog (at least) doesn't think that the Iranian regime irrational - more than anything else, it is solidly focused on it's own survival.

So, nothing to see here - let's all get back to the Christmas specials on telly. But not a clever move by the Iranians, and I suspect, not one that they're going to enact, irrespective of their domestic posturing.

Finally, in the spirit of goodwill to all men, in the unlikely event that this does kick off, please don't ask the Royal Navy how many spare ships it has to send out to help out in the SoH. You may get an answer similar to asking the RAF how many maritime patrol aircraft they can quickly send. Seen from here, the choices made in SDSR 2010 are looking less clever by the month.

*As long as you don't live in it or near it, clearly.

UK Defence Futures

(FV 107 / Scimitar / CVR(T) Mk. 2 in Afghanistan: the first of six replacement studies started in the early '80s.

Several hundred million pounds later, the UK has actually delivered um, no vehicles)

Few commentators on UK Defence are as well informed - or sadly, less well known outside of the narrow confines of defence spotterdom - than Francis Tusa, editor of the Defence Analysis newsletter. So it was with great interest that I heard that Mr Tusa had a programme on Defence Procurement on BBC Radio 4 - well worth a listen.

Much on "The Conspiracy of Optimism"; the fact is that the UK has been trying to get a quart into a pint pot, mostly by underestimating the costs of the equipment at the beginning. Essentially, very few equipment programmes are ever cancelled, and as a result if you can get it into the MoD Equipment Programme (EP) then the cost rises will simply be absorbed at the end of the process. (NB to the defence industrialists whining about everything - BAE Systems, that's you amongst others - is just ridiculous: the MoD is not there as a industrial policy - it is there to deliver combat effect in support of foreign policy goals at a time and place of the Government's choosing.)

 (Lots of bits. From lots of Constituencies. And not yet assembled....)

Except that costs are generally not absorbed or mitigated, as the costs are allowed to rise and the stock MoD answer is to S L O W things down. Right down. Very S L O W L Y indeed (but remember, nothing gets cancelled, right?) This drives the costs through the roof, but makes it affordable in the next 12 months. How much more expensive? Well, effectively doubling the cost of the Carrier programme for instance, leaving the UK in the absurd position of having one and a bit aircraft carriers with no actual aircraft to fly off them. Well done.  

So, Bernard Gray (the new broom at Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S)) wants new skills and expertise into the procurement game. Good. But the biggest challenge is surely that irrespective of the MoD getting it's house in order (which is a good idea, but is unlikely in the short-term - and the cultural change required is enormous), it is just as much about the UK government deciding what it wants to achieve internationally - and then paying for it.

Very, very, difficult choices in 2012. Happy New Year, MoD.

Baby Scots

(An LMS "Patriot" 4-6-0; 45500 Patriot herself, in fact.)

We do do occasional steam trains here at SRM; it's an important element balancing the law, defence and foreign affairs elements that is our usual fare.  So here in what turns out to be my 100th post since relaunching the blog back in July 2010, we're back to steam engines. And weirdly, this features a class of locomotive that I've never warmed to from a railway that I always thought was rather dull.

So what's this all about?

It's about the dedication of passionate enthusiasm in the face of any kind of rational assessment of that which is dourly sensible. All of the Patriot-class were scrapped in the early 1960s, and a small group based at the Llangollen Railway are building one from scratch with assorted odds and sods that did survive from the end of steam (a tender, some buffers etc). The new engine will be named "The Unknown Warrior" and will be the UK's national memorial engine, perpetuating the old railway tradition of having an engine which recognised the sacrifices of staff and passengers in wartime.

All jolly good. She should look like the painting below when she's finished - hopefully in early 2018 for the centenary of the WW I Armistice.

And things seem to be going pretty well. Well done to them!

Winning the Revolution

(Libyan celebrate in Martyr's Square)

Merry Christmas to all. 

And in Libya, happy Independence Day, being celebrated for the first time since the Gaddafi revolution of 1 September 1969 - under Gaddafi, only his revolution was deemed worthy of celebrating.

But what is also interesting today is that the Libyan Revolution - as well as the other revolutions of the "Arab Spring" - continue long after the end of the previous regime. And arguably, the continuing work on constitutions and accountability mechanisms is going to be the thing that secures the gains already made through the emergence of civil society. This is why the call today for increased accountability from the Libyan National Transitional Council by Lawyers for Justice in Libya is both welcome and timely: civil society does need to play its role in ensuring there is accountability.

So, happy birthday Libya, and hearty applause to LFJL for ensuring that the peace is won as well.

An outbreak of common sense?

("Hi, I'm back. Can we all be friends again? Hello? Angela? Nicky? Hello?")

A very interesting article from The Sun. As many of you know, The Sun isn't my natural paper of choice, but if the report is true that David Cameron is seriously looking at what they hilariously describe as a "EU-turn" (oh what witty banter they come up with in Wapping!), then thank goodness for that. 

It won't immediately overcome the impact of the non-veto at the Council, and as The Sun correctly notes, 

"If the PM did sign a new treaty it would spark fury from Tory Eurosceptic MPs". 

Indeed, because as I argued at the time, unless Cameron wants to put the UK irreparably on the exit ramp from the EU,  this confrontation needs to happen. It also lays bare the fact that that this row is now (and probably always was) largely about internal Tory party party management, not about the substance of the new institutional arrangements - which is doubly damaging for Cameron who persistently claimed (in the face of the evidence) that he was "doing what was right for Britain".

So, let's hope that the PM can find a face saving route to climb down over Christmas and face down the Eurosceptics / Europhobes in his own backbenches. The sad truth is that if he doesn't do it now, then he'll either be in hock to them for the rest of his time in charge (shades of John Major and the "Maastricht Rebels") or he'll have to face them down later at much higher political cost. Unless, of course, he wants to leave the EU (which I'm sure he doesn't). 

Attaboy, Dave! Up and at them, and all of that.

History's curious juxtapositions

(One took Frost's Road Not Taken. That'd be the bloke on the left, in case you were confused.)

History sometimes has a sense of humour.

In one of those uncanny historical parallels, two children of war and communism who came to lead - and define - their countries died this past weekend. One will be remembered for entrenching a Cold War divide with an illicit nuclear programme, the other for presiding over the break up of the country he had done more than anyone else to liberate from the Cold War. By the end, in everything other than the temporal proximities of their deaths, the lives and reputations of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-il could not be more different.

I celebrate Havel not just as the sometimes grumpy and irascible philosopher king of Czechoslovakia - though this would be more than enough - but also with a profound gratitude for changing the way I saw politics and the responsibility of the citizen when I read The Power of the Powerless at Middlebury. A good and madly moving book under any circumstances, it was a profoundly brave book to have edited in 1985 with the Czech secret police (StB) sniffing about for anti-communism. I'm looking forward to re-reading it over the Christmas break.

(Awesome. Go and read it.)

Kim Jong-il was just a tyrannical criminal who apparently ate lobster and drank cognac whilst 6% of his population starved to death in the 1990s, more than a million were political prisoners in labor camps, and the remainder of his population were real and mental prisoners in the collective punishment that is laughably called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He was also the world's most accomplished golf cheat, it now turns out. Or just possibly like the rest of the Hermit Kingdom, it was merely lying to himself and the rest of us - in between kidnapping film-makers to make socialist remakes of Godzilla. Frankly, in an irony that Kim Jong-il as a film buff may have appreciated, he was such an egregious bad-guy, that if we'd have seen it scripted in a movie it would've completely lacked credibility. Kim did like looking at things, however; fortunately, so does his son.

So, this monstrous criminal dies in his private train without any judicial intervention. And just like that, history steps in and provides a beautiful juxtaposition of two forms of leadership and moral courage.

RIP, President Havel.

Eurodebacle, continued.

(One view. Helpfully unencumbered by any actual facts, of course.)

In haste - an interesting take that I'd missed from the BBC's Mark Urban. The main point is that UK seems to have had a negotiation fiasco - the idea of bouncing the rest of the EU into something unrelated to saving the euro at a day's notice was always going to be difficult, and in fact it was a shambles. Fortunately, the UK is walking back on this at this point.

More SDSR fallout...

 

("Minister, I'd like to drop this bomb on Libya this afternoon if we can afford it..."
"Dunno, let me get back to you.")

Briefly, those disreputable lefties at the Guardian have come up with a scoop, with an authentic-looking paper on cutting senior officers and civil servants in the UK Ministry of Defence. Naturally, the MoD are refusing to comment on leaks (which is sensible, and not just because there have recently been times when arguably they wouldn't have done anything else), but the numbers are remarkable.

Not, I hasten to add, because we didn't already know that there were lots more senior officers than the UK's force size would suggest, nor because we weren't all too clear that the MoD had a largely unreformed management structure, in which classic pyramids abound (if I'm a 1-star officer, then I must have one or more Captain / Colonel / Group Captains working for me, who in turn need the full array of Lieutenant Commanders / Majors / Squadron Leaders working for them who in turn etc etc).

No, on a first pass, the most notable factoid (assuming, as seems likely, this leak is real) is that the numbers of senior officers really grew after the end of the Cold War in 1990. Not sure yet whether this is absolute numbers or merely as a proportion of the forces - I'll get back to this later in the week.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with the ever-prescient words of Bremner, Bird and Fortune:

(Well, yes...)

Edit: updates here and here.

A week on from the Eurodebacle

(Ah, it was all so much easier back then...)

Ok, so last weekend I was very annoyed about the "Ready, Fire, Aim" approach to EU negotiation by David Cameron; and it didn't get any better by Monday. According to the FT, the cunning plan seems to have been the bright idea of Sir Jon Cunliffe, the ex-Treasury incoming head of UKREP. At the time, I was musing about how this could be unwound, by getting Cameron to amend his current course by approximately 179 degrees. After the PM's Commons statement on Monday, someone (I'm assuming Nick Clegg) has been on the phone to the rest of Europe trying to patch things up.

And whoever this someone is, they've had some early success. The good news is that Britain has been offered "observer" status at the EU-26 talks, and that Germany's Chancellor Merkel's comments that she wants the UK in the EU. This, along with the realization that the one thing Cameron has failed to actually protect was the financial services sector (because most of the financial regulation is still under QMV at 27) - ironic, given this was the rationale for the veto-that-wasn't last week - means that the 179 degree course correction is on, slowly.

What the Tory Eurosceptics/phobes like Bill Cash MP will make of this is not likely to be pleasant reading in No. 10. But in defending the national interest, Cameron will ultimately have to face down his own right wing - which could be great fun to watch, but will continue to irritate the Coalition.

We shall see.

Breaking Up is hard to do...

 (International Law doesn't require Neil Sedaka, but why not...)

In 2011 the world's map has changed. A surprising amount, in fact. 2011 saw the emergence of South Sudan onto the world stage, the failure of Palestine to be accepted to UN Membership - though Palestine is now a UNESCO member - and lots of unhappy (but now largely frozen) conflicts rumbling on (e.g. Balochistan, Kurdistan, West Papua, Puntland, Somaliland, Transnistria, Tibet, and East Turkestan, to name but a few). In other words, the international system is anything but static; the problem is that our international legal system makes it quite difficult.

Given that finding a route out of these otherwise intractable conflicts, this constitutes a problem. A major problem, in fact.

(Fwags required. Honestly!)

But, I hear you cry - "Tobbes, so what? This stuff has been going on for years. And?"

And that's fine. There's clearly more to this independence business than designing a flag and starting a pro-independence party, with the option of having a small war (or indeed a large one) to get your people's freedom. But the problems are significant:

     - How does the outside world decide who to back?
     - What is the territory that needs to be "liberated"?
     - What role is there for democracy?
     - Is a simple majority enough?
     - Who gets to vote?
     - What guarantees are in place for the minorities that are likely to remain in any secession?*
     - How are these enforced?
     - Ultimately, What is "Justice"?

The questions go on and on.

Which is good, as ideally I'd like to do some PhD work on this at some point. Thoughts, anyone?

 

 (But it does work, occasionally.) 

*We're assuming here that mass population movements are no longer being contemplated - Turkey / Greece in 1922/23 and India / Pakistan in 1947 are experiments that don't need repeating.

Assange and Wikileaks are "Enemy Combatants"

 

(Enemy combatants? Sure, all over the place!)

Newton Leroy Gingrich, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, is notable for making incendiary comments on a whole range of policy issues. His recent comments on Palestinians as an "invented people" were outrageous enough, (and I was planning on writing about this at some point, but David Cameron and the EU got in the way), but his reported remarks this morning that Wikileaks' Julian Assange is an "enemy combatant" is breathtaking.

This blog has been critical of Wikileaks in the past; Assange in my view has been utterly irresponsible in releasing unredacted US diplomatic traffic - this always felt more about him than about open government. However, Gingrich has taken this to a whole new level: consider the implications of his actual statement. If Gingrich is correct, then:

- Assange can be legitimately targeted by US forces.

- Freedom of speech is where?

Fortunately, it's safe to say that Gingrich is wrong. It's not at all clear what his legal basis for this is - GC III, AP I or AP II? Gingrich could potentially make the case that the Assange was making a material contribution to US enemy action by releasing the US State Department archive that was leaked to him, allegedly by US Army Pvt Bradley Manning. In doing so, you could argue that Assange was taking a direct participation in hostilities, and therefore was targetable.

But I don't see it. Indeed, the reverse should be the case - freedom of expression is protected in Article 19 of the UDHR, amongst other places. Looks like Newt shooting from the hip, as usual.

European Council Debacle Part Deux

(Yep, quite a lot to ponder there, Dave...)

48 hours on, does David Cameron's position look any better / more sensible / vaugely explicable?

In a word, no.

(In fact, in several words, NO, absolutely NOT.)

It's increasingly clear that this is basically a screw up, albeit on a previously unknown scale. There's coverage everywhere, but Will Hutton's piece is excellent, and it's hard to see how things are going to get any better soon. I can only hope against hope that the financial services sector make it crystal clear that this isn't remotely helpful to them, and that the worst possible position is for the UK not to be in the room making sensible suggestions about evidence-based policy making in this area, and that as a result, the UK needs to swallow it's pride and get back in there.

A difficult U-turn. But an essential one.

And no, I don't see the Coalition breaking up yet. But a bad weekend for that, too.

Cameron? Really? Why didn't Clegg stop him?

 

(Dave: Fail. Epic Fail.)

I don't normally blog here on European issues, as it's a very specialist element of international law. However, PM Cameron's decision not to participate with the new EU Treaty to help save the euro at 4am on Friday means that I'll break with this rule. It's basically out of a real sense of confusion and disgust that I'm scribbling these lines.

First, Britain hasn't "vetoed" anything. Britain is simply excluded from the Treaty the 26 other states of the EU will conclude, and therefore Britain will have no say (and less influence) on the outcome. Given that this could include single market decisions and financial services regulation - that Cameron was claiming to be protecting - this could rapidly get us to the position that the decisions he was seeking to influence get made without the UK's input, as they're subject to codecision under QMV at 27 but if 26 of the 27 states have already decided, then it's a done deal. UK influence = Zero.

Second, as a result of this, there is no reason for international banks wanting to operate in Europe who can relocate to Frankfurt or Paris not to do so, as Britain's influence in financial services regulation in Europe is now effectively zero - and will be for a decade or more. This will be a slow process, but to the extent to which influence on the regulatory regime helps decide where you base your activities, then this is inevitable.

Third, the outcome of the ECJ case on non-discrimination in the eurozone that the UK has launched will not be known for several years. In the absence of provisional measures, there could be de jure bars as well as the de facto barriers that have existed for those outside the single currency since it's inception. Not good for the single market, and not good for those outside the euro.

(Britain's future EU role?)

Fourth, there is no clarity on the domestic political front that this will silence the Tory "Eurosceptics" - in reality Europhobes - and avoid their demands for a Referendum on the UK's relationship to the rest of the EU. This is a manifestation of Cameron's weakness inside the Tory party - remember he was the guy who couldn't defeat Gordon Brown in the midst of an economic debacle of his opponents making. In essence, any such Referendum would be the In/Out Referendum that UKIP wants and which many pro-Europeans fear, as they expect to lose it, leading to the British withdrawal from the EU. This would be about the most short-sighted economic decision imaginable, but the pro-Europeans bear a heavy share of responsibility - including Blair - for not making the case to Britons for why the EU matters to them - and in their hip pocket.

Fifth, the Europhobes / UKIPers keep banging on about Britain withdrawing from the EU and then having a free-trade agreement with the EU as the EEA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway) and Switzerland (under different rules) do. Unfortunately, those advocating this position seem to miss the point that the reason that the EEA states get to access the single market is that they have to apply the acquis in all areas except agriculture and fisheries, and have no way of influencing the rules. Given that agriculture and fisheries in the UK makes up less than 2% of the economy, even if this deal were possible, it's a completely absurd notion, as you want to be having a say in making the rules. You do save the net costs of the EU budget, however - say £15bn p.a (less than half the £44bn the UK will spend on debt interest).

Sixth, if EEA Plus is a beguiling chimera, then Cameron has achieved something even worse: paying the net budgetary cost of full EU membership whilst having very little more clout than the other EEA states - the UK has a veto in those areas that the Lisbon Treaty requires unanimity at 27 for, but if the other 26 are going to agree amongst themselves, and a decision doesn't directly contradict existing legislation at EU-27 level, then the UK's vetoes are meaningless. Legal challenges will keep the ECJ happily busy, though.

Seventh, two things about the Council that seem to have been missed in the noise. First, Croatia will join in 2013 - well done Croatia, a small piece of good news. But bad news for the UK as new members will be expected to join the group of 26 - and indeed why would any new members want to join the Brits in second-class EU membership? Second, the Council meeting was designed to save the euro - and it hasn't provided the mechanisms to do so.

Finally, what the hell was Nick Clegg - a former European Commission bureaucrat, former Member of the European Parliament, and leader of our beloved Liberal Democrats, Britain's most pro-European party - doing? Clegg must have been aware of all of the above, and yet he endorsed Cameron's approach. Remarkable, (and remarkably stupid) given that he recognizes the damage that a two-speed Europe poses to the UK.  

So what do we make of this? Firstly, it's too early to make definitive predictions... however, here we go:

 - The UK shouldn't have walked out - you stay and negotiate until there is a text on the table - which there doesn't appear to have been;

- The coalition will survive as the LibDems face electoral oblivion if they go to the polls now, so coalition politics will struggle on to 2015 (when the LibDems may still face electoral oblivion);

- The new Treaty at 26 is due to be finished by March 2012 - remarkably quickly; but they also need to get it approved, and this should involve referenda in the Netherlands and Ireland that aren't obviously straightforward, so the Treaty may or may not even happen;

- If the international financial services sector based in London make clear to the British Government that they're likely to decamp to the Eurozone then it could be time for the most epic (and humiliating) of U-turns for the UK to rejoin the Treaty at 26 (naturally on much worse terms than if the UK had stayed in in the first place).

A triumph all round then. Let's hope the Europhobes and UKIPers enjoy their "triumph"; schadenfreude-induced-by-payback will suck.

North Bennington Depot

(Architectural Napoleon complex: Very large station. Very short platform. Hmm.)

Built in 1880 as a piece of crazy American Victoriana, this is the station in my mother's home town - North Bennington, Vermont. We've seen in once before, back in March this year. As "A Travellers Library" points out, North Bennington is now featured in a new book entitled "America's Great Railroad Stations" - a fitting tribute, I think. 

(Looking northbound. I also never understood why the name is facing the driver -
I'd hoped that they'd know where they were...)

The station's survival is also a very American story; not the story of the big corporation, or of the large foundation, but of local benefactors in small towns bringing their community together. The notice board on the station sets out the story eloquently...

The sad thing is that the last passenger trains to North Bennington ran in 1953 or so: it looked something like this from Jim Shaughnessy's 1981 book Rutland Road. 

(New York bound in the capable hands of one of the four gorgeous Rutland 90-series 4-8-2s)

So the good news is that the the states of Vermont and New York are conducting a study into returning passenger service to Albany and New York, potentially as soon as 2014-15. Our friends at the Vermont Rail Action Network are doing good work with the VT congressional delegation to get this done. Good!

 

(Looking south, it somehow reminds me of an aircraft carrier...)

The photo I really want a copy of the station is at Kevin's Sports Pub in North Bennington- it has the view below, but with a very early (probably a '79 or '80) Saab 900 GLs. This is one picture that I'd be happy to replicate- with Amtrak preparing to depart in the background of course...

 (Cute. Much cuter with a Saab 900 outside the station, though...)

In a rush, a couple of things...

A crazy week at work, but two things to highlight that I will return to.

First, Iceland has recognised Palestine today. The hoopla at the UN in September, followed by Palestine's accession to UNESCO seems long ago now, but here is tangible evidence that the process continues, state-by-state.

Second piece to return to is the failure of the cluster bomb talks. This is very depressing, as it is clearly what is seen to be perfect being the enemy of a ban that would have made a real difference. I'll write more about this at the weekend.

Strategic Thinking on Trident Part II

 

(The Muppets' take on SDSR. As opposed to the take of the muppets who actually did SDSR.)

I was reflecting on Trident with a friend the other day, and unusually, we agreed on something: that the key questions are all about prioritization and the UK's role in the world, with the international legal questions playing a constructive but not definitive role. Indeed, dear reader(s)*, I (sadly) accept that the UK will attempt to finesse any argument on NPT Art VI based on whatever the Government decides it wants to do - though I broadly accept Daniel Joyner's argument on Art VI, and specifically Christine Chinkin's 2005 Opinion on the UK's obligations under the NPT, and that replacing Trident would be inconsistent with the UK's NPT obligations.**

The question my friend and I sparred over was whether there was a case for Trident replacement based on the uncertainty of the world situation, and the possibility / probability of further proliferation of nuclear arms; specifically, should Iran go nuclear, would this prompt Saudi acquisition of nuclear capability as Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP suggests, leading to the nuclearisation of the rest of the Middle East? 

(DF-21C. Presumably Saudi ones at least get a different paint scheme.)

I am the first to agree that there is little to be gained in terms of regional security by the proliferation of atomic weapons to Iran and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, as the Atlantic Magazine points out this week, the insecurity of Pakistan's atomic arsenal is perceived as one of the three most serious national security threats to the US; the notion of Saudi buying an atomic capability from Pakistan (or more implausibly, Israel) to mount on its recently acquired Chinese Dong-Feng 21 (CSS-5) MRBMs is plausible and worrying. But the should the expectation that Iranian nuclearisation and Saudi response mean that the UK should go ahead and replace Trident? 

In a word, "No".

Why?

The rationale for an independent UK nuclear capability has historically been based around the perceived need for a second-decision making pole in a superpower exchange: bluntly, would - when push came to shove - the US initiate a tactical / strategic nuclear exchange which would result in the destruction of the American homeland to respond to a conventional Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe? In case the answer was "no" - or "possibly no" - then the case for a British (and French) nuclear force that could inflict enough damage on the USSR to deter the Soviet Union from trying it on - the fabled "Moscow Criterion" - was intellectually defensible. 

However, it was only required because the US could have been subject to nuclear blackmail - something that none countries of concern (Iran, Pakistan, North Korea) have demonstrated. And it is instructive to see how far from this position these countries are: the closest would be North Korea if it were able to deploy a reliable Taepo-Dong 2 ICBM force with which it could hit the US west coast - which is about a million miles from the current position of two public test flights that ended in failure, and no evidence that the required small (under 500kg) nuclear warhead exists in North Korea. If Pakistan can produce the Tamiur ICBM (yet to be tested, much less deployed), the reported 7000km design range does not bring the US within range - see below:

(OPAB is the ICAO code for Abbotabad - Osama bin Laden's last home town.

7000km is the lighter area - excluding all of the USA.)

As such, Tamiur poses no threat to the US and therefore there would be no cost to the US in responding to (the currently - and for the foreseeable future - technically impossible) proposition of a Pakistani nuclear ICBM attack on the UK. Consequently, the fear of nuclear blackmail leading to strategic decoupling of US from NATO from a Tamiur-style ICBM is simply non-existent. (It is accepted that Pakistan could put an atomic weapon in a shipping container and deliver to target on a truck - but unless you're prepared to retaliate on suspicion of the source, Trident is no use to you.)

It is also hard to see that the US/NATO gains much from UK Continuous At-Sea Deterrence (CASD) given the very limited number of warheads that UK Trident now carries. Indeed, the gang over at Arms Control Wonk argue persuasively that even if the US defence cuts from the failure of the Budgetary Super Committee disproportionately fell on the nuclear forces -  leading to the removal of a land-based ICBM and cutting SSBN(X) Trident submarine replacement to 10 boats from 12 - then the US could still configure its forces to max-out the New START limits. With 1550 warheads, it's hard to see what difference 48 UK CASD warheads makes to the decision-making of, say, North Korea or Pakistan now or in the next 20 years.

It is on this basis that I'm coming to the position that the UK gains very little in security terms from retaining Trident; it does however cost at least £30bn that could make a significance difference to the UK's conventional forces, which, as we've discussed ad nauseam here is actually what could make a significant difference to the UK - and to NATO and the UK's non-NATO partners. Moreover, until the UK brings the new aircraft carriers into service - preferably with some aircraft to fly off them - UK conventional long-range short-notice conventional force projection is limited to two cruise missile systems: the RN's with BGM-109 Tomahawk from its attack submarines (SSNs) and RAF Tornados with Storm Shadow. Both systems are excellent and provide complementary capabilities. Indeed, HMS ASTUTE recently completed the first of class firings of Tomahawk in the USA.

As good as these systems are, there are clear limitations - Storm Shadow is comparatively short-ranged (reportedly under 300nm) meaning that some credible target sets will require the Tornados to overfly defended territory with attendant greater risks, and will in any event likely require local basing rights for the Tornado launch aircraft. Tomahawk is long range (more than 1000nm) but the RN is suffering from an acute lack of SSNs with the older Swiftsure-class boats now retired, and the first of the Trafalgar-class also struck without the replacement Astute-class SSNs ready to replace them. Moreover, the Trafalgar-class's maximum warload of 30 torpedoes and Tomahawks means that the total number of missiles is actually available against any target set is likely to be less than this. And though stealthy, a submarine can only be in one place at once.

(USS Ohio undergoing SSBN to SSGN conversion)

Decomissioning Trident could address both of these problems. As part of the 1992 START II Treaty, the US Navy would have to reduce its total SSBN fleet to 14. However, instead of scrapping them, it converted four of its 18 Ohio-class SSBNs to carry up to 154 Tomahawks instead of Trident missiles. The result is an impressively balanced, stealthy, strike platform, which provides far more relevant capability to today's - and tomorrow's - conflicts than the Trident missiles formerly carried. Better still for the UK, given that the UK's Vanguard-class SSBNs have the same missile compartment design - though mounting 16 rather than 24 tubes - conversion to Tomahawk carriage should benefit from the considerable work already completed by the US Navy. A full-up Vanguard-class SSGN could carry 106 Tomahawks - more than three times the theoretical maximum number on a Trafalgar-class.

SSGN conversion and already anticipated life-extension to the Vanguard-class would allow the UK to have a deployable, long-range conventional precision strike platform through to the full operational capability of the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers in the mid-2020s. Food for thought!

* As per ES, it is essential to provide grammatical certainty

** This raises the interesting question of what would happen if the Finance Act which provided funding for Trident were the subject of a Judicial Review....

Strategic Thinking on Trident Part I - Why?

 

(RNAD Coulport - where the UK's nuclear weapons are stored before being mated to Trident missiles)

What should the UK's future policy be on replacing of Trident? And how should the IAEA's November 2011 report on Iran affect the UK's position?

These aren't easy questions, going as they do to the core of what the UK's role in the world is / should be over the next 30 years, and what the British people are prepared to pay for this role. Indeed, if the last 30 years are any guide to the next 30, then UK politicians will find it far too easy to ignore the cost of their global ambitions, and in effect hoping that their unfunded strategic bluff will never get called.

Indeed, this was British policy in the 1920s under the so-called "10-year Rule", which postulated in Professor Vernon Bogdanor's words, "that they should plan on the assumption there would not be a war for the next 10 years because the view was that large armaments led to war - this was only abandoned in 1932." Helpfully, the 10-year rule was also much cheaper than rearmament. And arguably, (Afghanistan aside), the UK's 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) has in effect attempted to reinstitute the 10-year rule with a strong focus on what it calls "Future Force 2020", in which painful cuts today will, in the words of the RAF PR machine lead to:

"The longer-term vision for the make up of our military – Future Force 2020 – will be secured by this one-per-cent-a-year real terms increase in the planned equipment and equipment support programme."

Except that there is little confidence that the money required is available, given that at the beginning of the SDSR process there was at least a £42bn hole in MoD's procurement finances in the period to 2020. Helpfully, much of the capital spending on the Trident spending would occur just beyond this horizon, and is thus helpfully excluded. Hence, a more realistic assessment of the position is that it is even more unhealthy than this looks.

The time for such a muddled "strategy" - if it ever existed - is well and truly over. Instead, what is required is a careful assessment of the what role the UK wants to play internationally, and how it should go about getting there from here - accepting that "here" is not an optimal starting point. Moreover, given that it will cost at least £25 - £30bn in capital spend between now and 2025, the replacement for Trident has a central role to play in any such discussion - something that Dr. Liam Fox MP as the Secretary of State for Defence at the time of SDSR explicitly overruled by insisting that Trident would be replaced (and implicitly, whatever other cuts were required would be borne to protect the Trident programme.) As we've seen, the required cuts were deep, wide-ranging and rushed: it is therefore of little surprise that in the next decade Britain's conventional forces will become dangerously unbalanced (e.g., an RN capable of deployed a carrier battle group sans aircraft, but only if they stopped doing almost anything else; no fixed-wing maritime patrol assets to support maritime ops; 14 extremely expensive PFI air-refuelling tankers and down to 8 squadrons of fast jets. And this is before we get to the Army...).

So what? And more importantly, so what about Trident?

Well, it's difficult. We'll come to that in Part II. But here's a teaser....

 

(USS Ohio SSBN-726 undergoing SSGN conversion. 

Note the former Trident tubes open behind the sail)

We're back!

In the live broadband world, after too long away. (Thanks for not-very-much, BT....)

Anyway, back in January, we looked briefly at the the legal and practical implications of weaponising cyberspace. Given that reciprocity is a key foundation of international law, I was very interested in this short piece from the Guardian today, detailing a possible cyber attack on a US water control facility.

Interesting times!

NPT Article VI

(IAEA, guardian and enforcer of the much sinned-against NPT)

Well, the good news is that the trial is over, and normal service is being resumed; the present status flag will move from Vermont, but I expect that it will be back reasonably soon.

As I mentioned a week or so ago, some new work is being kicked off on the British replacement of Trident, with an initial focus on the legal issues surrounding the strange case of the extra comma. Let's pick up the analysis of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Article VI from where we left off - looking at Daniel Joyner's new book "Interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty". Joyner's book came in for some reasonably trenchant criticism, which in my view makes it all the more interesting.

It is.

Joyner's argument is beguilingly based on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) - the Treaty that governs how to interpret Treaties. His (altogether unremarkable) conclusion is that a straight reading of the NPT and it's negotiating history is that as a document it takes the form of three pillars - non-proliferation (Articles I, II and III), peaceful use of nuclear energy (Articles IV and V) and disarmament (Article VI). So far, so conventional. What is more radical is the proposition that the NPT was balanced between these pillars, and that Article VI is just as important as Articles I-III. Joyner's most radical work is in his interpretation of what Article VI actually means (it's that pesky comma again).

But that comes later. Joyner's starting point is the nature of the NPT itself - a contractual rather than merely law-making  treaty. In this, Joyner comes to the conclusion that it is the contractual nature of the NPT that provides a key insight into its interpretation; that in making the treaty contractual on a range of differing obligations, it becomes clearer that the Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) owe disarmament obligations to the Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS) in return for the NNWS not pursing their own nuclear weapons programmes (and in the process, locking in their strategic disadvantage / inferiority).

Article VI

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Joyner goes on to make a strong case that Art VI commitments are not, pace the Bush Administration's Christopher Ford, merely a commitment to pursue negotiations on nuclear disarmament, but that the good faith test pushes things on to a requirement to conclude a nuclear disarmament treaty separately to the general and complete disarmament treaty that is also envisaged in the NPT.

This view also takes the state practice of the NWS should - it would appear on the basis of self-interest - to be weighed against that of the NNWS, and largely discounted because of the self-interest inherent in their position. I don't think that it's possible to go this far. An with respect, I don't see how the the ICJ's Advisory Opinion in the 1996 Nuclear Weapons Case from paragraph 99 onwards can conclude that

"... the legal import of that obligation goes beyond that of a mere obligation of conduct ; the obligation involved here is an obligation to achieve a precise result - nuclear disarmament in all its aspects - by adopting a particular course of conduct, namely, the pursuit of negotiations on the matter in good faith."
Inasmuch as if this was the construction that the drafters had intended, then they could simply have drafted Art VI thus:

Article VI

Each of the Parties to the Treaty agrees to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

The point is that they didn't. Much better, I think is the 2005 Joint Opinion by Professor Christine Chinkin at LSE and Rabinder Singh QC, formerly of Matrix Chambers, who note in paragraph 69 that 

69. The Treaty obligation is thus not to disarm as such, but a positive obligation to pursue in good faith negotiations towards these ends, and to bring them to a conclusion. Good faith is the legal requirement for the process of carrying out of an existing obligation.... 

leading them to conclude in paragraph 74: 

74. Enhancing nuclear weapons systems, possibly without going through parliamentary processes, is, in our view, not conducive to entering into negotiations for disarmament as required by the NPT, article VI and evinces no intention to 'bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects'. It is difficult to see how unilateral (or bilateral) action that pre-empts any possibility of an outcome of disarmament can be defined as pursuing negotiations in good faith and to bring them to a conclusion and is, in our view, thereby in violation of the NPT, article VI obligation. 

This instinctively feels like the best balance of the difficult negotiating process and subsequent history of the NPT. And it would make a UK Trident replacement a violation of the NPT, and with it a violation of international law.

Interesting times!

Rwanda and the ECtHR

As a follow up to my talk with Stephanie Wolfe at Bennington College last Friday night, I was very interested in this post at IntLawGrrls on whether Rwanda is capable of offering a fair trial to Hutus (or former Hutus) accused of serious crimes in the 1994 genocide. Interesting stuff, and well worth a read.

(Corrected link with thanks to Kyle).

Palestine joins UNESCO

 

So, after Palestine's formal application for UN Membership in September, UNESCO has voted to admit Palestine as a full member today. This vote (107-14-52), with 81 positive votes required, has no direct bearing on the UN membership application, though the US threat to withhold their UNESCO assessments (22% in line with the UN assessment scales) is problematic.

More soon.

Dr Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi and the ICC

(As the badge says, LSE exists "To know the causes of things" - like who wrote Saif al-Islam's thesis....)

I was asked the other day by a Middlebury undergrad who is writing a thesis on NATO's intervention in Kosovo for proof that international law exists - or is at least effective.* And whilst it is possible to make lots of theoretical arguments, there is nothing like a good practical example to demonstrate that international law has teeth by changing behaviours - most notably of those who would otherwise see themselves as beyond the reach of the law. 

Few in 2011 have been as far beyond the reach of the law as Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, especially after his "Rivers of Blood" speech on 21 Feb 11. Yet following military defeat and his indictment by the ICC, it is reported today that he has contacted the ICC through intermediaries to arrange his surrender to the Court. Naturally, the man that the ICC indictment refers to as the "de facto Prime Minister of Libya" protests his innocence, but it is telling that he's attempting to arrange his surrender - though clearly his limited other options and the absence of capital punishment make an ICC trial more attractive than being on the run in Libya.

And as for Saif al-Islam's PhD? Well, the London School of Economics** has referred its authorship to the University of London under the Procedure for Consideration of Allegations of Irregularity in Relation to University of London Awards. LSE now runs itself, but in 2008 when Saif al-Islam was awarded his PhD, it was still granting degrees via the University of London, and it is Senate House that will investigate the situation; a report is due later this year. At least there will be plenty of time for the ICC Registry to work out whether it needs to address its new defendant as "Dr Saif al-Islam" or simply "Mr. Gaddafi"....

*Eoin, I agree this is something of a simplification of your question.

** I loved my time at the LSE, and as painful as it is to see it's name blackened by the ill-judged Libyan connection, the Woolf Report should provide a solid foundation for transparency when it is published.

Birdcages!

(A Birdcage, SECR-style)

I've been reminded that there have been a lack of steam trains in this blog recently. An oversight. So it was very exciting to see the Bluebell Railway has completed the restoration of SECR "Birdcage" brake 3363, both because of the quality of the reconstruction - restoration seems far too narrow a term for what has been achieved in Sussex:

(3363 as she appeared in 1998 - hence "reconstruction")

So, the "Birdcage" glazed area provides a new vantage point for the important business of looking at steam engines.

With credit to Roger Carpenter for the pictures taken last Saturday, here's what that view looks like:

The locomotive in question is LBSCR Billinton Radial Tank, No. B473:

Enjoy!