Mar 29 2007
Britain’s a paper tiger?
***Further thoughts below***
***Further further updates below***
As Tony Blair’s rhetoric heats up against Iran, Britain’s hostage crisis doesn’t seem to be moving any closer to a resolution. Like it as not, modern Great Britain ain’t the Great Britain of yesteryear. I blogged on this topic in late January and garnered the attention of captain of the royal navy. I meant to return to the topic after conducting further research on the matter, but after poring through hours of news accounts and hard numbers from the Ministry of Defense, I became too despondent to even write about it.
Fred Thompson’s article yesterday reminded my of Britain’s impending calamity. It seemed he read the same Telegraph article I read…
Tony Blair’s getting angrier every day. But if past Iranian hostage takings are an indication, he may be upset for a while. The American-embassy hostages were held for 444 days, and the Israeli soldiers kidnapped last year by Iran’s Hezbollah puppets still aren’t free.
Blair is threatening to escalate to a “different phase,” but Iran’s leadership knows something that most Americans don’t. Two months ago, Britain’s government announced plans to mothball almost half its naval fleet due to defense-budget cuts. Much of its existing navy is already so degraded; it would take over a year to get into action. According to the British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, senior naval officers say that the cuts “will turn Britain’s once-proud Navy into nothing more than a coastal defense force.”
In fact, the British naval forces have been so neglected; the U.K. probably couldn’t pull off the Falkland Islands mission today. The world’s fifth-largest economy now supports an army that ranks 28th in size.
What are they thinking?
Commentor Greg Laurich opined in my previous post that, “There is still some bulldog left on that island.”
Frankly speaking, I’m not so sure.
Further thoughts:
Perhaps this entire situation would slam the Brits awake to the dangers lurking out there, and it’s a danger that Continental Europe cannot help them with.
When all is said and done, Britain is a maritime power and it’s grand strategy rests on controlling the seas. It’s an island after all. Otherwise, it would be completely defenseless to starvation, economic implosion and invasion. Would they risk that as part of the price for joining the EU?
Is it not ironic that Britain’s deadliest enemies have traditionally come from the European Continent? France, Spain, Germany, Russia… And now they plan to unilaterally disarm in the face of Islamofascism and the rising tide of fascism in general across the world.
Truly, the universe does not support boldness… and certainly not of the sort evinced by the Brits.
Update:
Britain is really gearing up to challenge Iran now. Blair and company is getting all worked up and threatens Iran with… a big, fat, happy UN Resolution.
How this changes anything is beyond me. If anything, by resorting to the UN just shows how impotent Britain truly is. How many UN resolutions have Iran defied without any meaningful consequences? Ah, I’ve lost count. It is a truism in the affairs of nations that if a country does not have vigorous navy, its means to project power is very, very limited. Britain is mothballing about half its fleet.
While it is true that Britain can threaten to nuke Iran off the face of the planet, Iran knows they won’t do it and risk economic meltdown and being ostracized from the rest of the world. This national embarrassment could go on for a long time unless we intervene and do what the Brits are unable to.
(cartoon by: http://www.coxandforkum.com/)
Update Again:
Commentor Ymarsakar wrote:
An elaboration on my point is that AIDS is more than just a disease, it is also a method by which to subvert something (a civilization) that you cannot defeat in a straight up match. If you can’t overpower someone, deceive them, right?
So Britain’s corruption has been ongoing for awhile now, Thomas. Any laments are perhaps, nearing the epitaph end of the spectrum.
Like many people, I read Melanie Phillips for the take on Britain. Now I can easily imagine that if things are bad now, that they must have been going worse since 1950s.
If you can’t take down a civilization in 50 years… well.
Yes, Britain has been in decline for the past fifty years, but that is to be expected. After WWII, they lost their empire, they lost most of their colonies, their nation was in rumble, and they were in a constant state of starvation all the way up into the 1960’s. The 20th century after WWII was really just a touch and go situation with Britain all the way around. She was lucky she didn’t fold then and there. People forget what a calamity WWII was… Just for some perspective, from the start of the century to the end of WWII, there were just a handful of countries that didn’t undergo a revolution with Britain being one of them. You could probably count the number of the countries that survived on just two hands. It’s hard for us to see sometimes but Britain really wasn’t in a position similar to ours after WWII, untouched by war on a vast continent stacked to the gills with natural resources.
So, I can’t really fault the British for being susceptible to the dream of socialism. It’s an alluring dream, especially to one that’s been through a whole wallop of trauma, but it’s dysfunctional at best and diabolically evil at worst. In comparison to most social engineering endeavors, Britain’s attempt was pretty benign… for now.
Even as late as Maggie Thatcher’s Prime Ministership, the British held that dignified stoicism that I so admired. I usually fault Labour with its demise, but I doubt that’s the case. The British people had fundamentally changed, a fact that Queen Elizabeth II had to face immediately after the death of Diana.
As to the why’s and wherefores, I contend that politics and the manipulations of social constructs had much, much less to do with with that than the collapse of Christianity in Britain.
Shortly before C.S. Lewis’s death, I heard he gave an interview where he said something to this effect (I’m paraphrasing):
“I’ve fought for the faith all my life. But the battle for Christianity in England is lost. Morality will follow. America will hold on grimly for another 50 years. Then the storm will break.”
Personally, my opinion is that any engraving on Britain’s tombstone now would be premature. I think they are still at a place demographically and technologically where they can recover and soldier on. But if they finally decide to wake up, it won’t be a very pretty sight. In fact, if they tried to reverse it, the ensuing civil unrest and violent protests would be the least of their pains.
Navies are ruinously expense, but they can rebuild under our naval umbrella. That is, if they’re smart and not piss away our Grand Alliance.
Related Posts:
Bookworm: That head scarf
Neo-Neocon: It’s “parading for the cameras” time
Michelle Malkin: Iran plays games, Britain wants condemnation
Hot Air: Hostage update: Blair threatens to …
Ace of Spades: Iran Demands Admission of “Trespass”
Yeah.. who would have thought that Americans could be sad at the de-militerization of the Mother Country. I certainly am. America needs the UK and vice versa. If anything, Americans can maybe learn a lesson concerning the effects of having socialised health care; I have no doubt that the bankruptcy of the NHS is a big factor in the mothballing.
Winston Churchill knew the importance of our Grand Alliance with Great Britain. He schemed and connived for American to enter WWII for years because he knew that Britain’s future as a people rode on its alliance with us. Indeed, since that time, we were joined in purpose, deserving of a “unique relationship”.
For them to let our relationship fall away so casually and abrupt is just disheartening. I initially became really mad at Blair’s Labour government for bringing this about. But Labour, for the moment, reflects the will of the people, and I personally don’t like where the British people have gone. Rightly or wrongly, I miss the understated stoicism and the dignity of the Brits over this seemingly endless hysteria we now see from that once exalted island.
I wonder how the Queen is taking this avalanche of change… she at least still sits on England’s throne and is still trying to uphold the dignity of the British monarchy and her people.
The only good thing is that the Brits actually have men and material in Iraq that they can use if need be. Looks like we were not the only ones who let their military slip during the 90’s…
I miss the understated stoicism and the dignity of the Brits over this seemingly endless hysteria we now see from that once exalted island.
You can’t have stoicism in a nanny state that has been going on for generations, at the start of WWII. You can’t have dignity when individuals mean nothing to the endless machine that is the government, full of cogs not people.
The British requires US logistics to move their men and supply them. Without US logistics, they can’t project power internationally.
An elaboration on my point is that AIDS is more than just a disease, it is also a method by which to subvert something (a civilization) that you cannot defeat in a straight up match. If you can’t overpower someone, deceive them, right?
So Britain’s corruption has been ongoing for awhile now, Thomas. Any laments are perhaps, nearing the epitaph end of the spectrum.
Like many people, I read Melanie Phillips for the take on Britain. Now I can easily imagine that if things are bad now, that they must have been going worse since 1950s.
If you can’t take down a civilization in 50 years… well.
The English have not lost all their backbone. When the July bombings occurred, they easily could have pulled a Spain and left with their tails between their legs, been the toast of Europe and doubtless saved many English lives in the short run. Instead the found those responsible and have stayed in Iraq despite all the piss poor decisions that were made post Saddam, this is just another push to see if England will push back. If this drags on much longer I think (and hope) that England will push back despite the inevitible consenquences.
Greg,
No, they haven’t lost all their backbone. This is the reason why I have hope for Britain despite all.
After the July 7th bombing, they fought back and rallied around Union Jack and stuck it out in Iraq. This February, however, Blair announced that he’s going to withdraw 1,600 of the 7,100 troops in Iraq, with a further withdraw in the summer.
After this announcement, I was pretty disheartened. But I think the good thing to come out of this hostage situation is that the British people are all riled up. Iran did in one moment what years of our persuading couldn’t do: make them realize that their bee-hind is on the line as well.
I think the Brits will eventually push back once they fundamentally realize that their immediate future rides on what happens in Iraq and Iran. I hope this situation opens their eyes to it.
Here’s the link to the Washington Post story on Britain’s troop draw-down in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/21/AR2007022100201.html
Thanks for the link. I did hear about it when it happened, but I’ll reread because I’m silly like that. Keep up the good work.
Hey, thanks Greg
When the July bombings occurred, they easily could have pulled a Spain and left with their tails between their legs, been the toast of Europe and doubtless saved many English lives in the short run.
Well, obviously that shows that Blair can take the heat. But it doesn’t reflect the will of the people. Since parliamentary systems do not represent the will of the people. They don’t even pretend to do so, not in the same way the US system works via pluralities.
Not every Frenchman and woman hates America, some even love America, real love that is. But it doesn’t matter. Parliamentaries are ruled by pure dictatorship of the majority of votes. If you have 33% socialists and 15% fascists, this trumps the 42% moderates. In our system, the plurality wins. And we even have the Electoral College to make sure it just isn’t a vote based upon numbers.
I mean, this isn’t something new, and the weakness of Parliamentary systems aren’t just because they have socialists. The weakness to a Par system is inherent. A historical example would be the British people kicking out the Conservatives and firing Winston Churchill after the war. They said to themselves “Labour, let us go with Labour and forget about the war heroes”. I mean, how can you spin it other than they kicked Winston Churchill out of power when they no longer needed him?
You could argue that people were voting for the Labour Party, not the PM, but that just demonstrates another weakness to the Par system, people. That people can’t directly vote for their freaking leader, the Prime Minister. You have to vote in his party for House of Commons, to get the leader too. And even then it is not too assured. MPs getting to choose the PM just means this. That the leader of Britain isn’t chosen because of leadership qualities, but because of support for his party. That’s like having former senators be President. Leadership and voting/making laws do not require the same fields of expertise.
You don’t have the freedom here in the US. You can’t have social liberals and fiscal conservatives in the Senate and House, while having a Republican total war President for national defense. They just don’t get that choice in Britain.
I mostly paid attention to the German elections. I didn’t check the British numbers, so I don’t know the details of their coalition/party makeup. But it seems a lot more simplified than the German version.
After this announcement, I was pretty disheartened.
There’s a lot of indications that Bush went to the UN largely because he felt he owed Blair a debt of loyalty, to give Blair a hand at home with domestic propaganda consumption. Since Britain is big on UN, getting a resolution would make Blair’s support of the war less unpopular. You know Bush can be fooled by “personal loyalty” into making unwise decisions and saying the wrong things. Whether that’s Putin or the Democrats or even Tenet. So I’m of the impression that lack of British forces aren’t such a negative. Bush and the US paid the price for their help, Blair paid the price, and now here we are.
I hope people don’t forget that Blair is really far left on domestic matters. And it is the domestic front that Britain is losing. The US can hold Iraq and Afghanistan by ourselves with just our Arab allies and sepoys, but Britain has to take care of their own house. They are not going to get a 250,000 man occupation force, after all, to stabilize riots and crime. Britain had trouble dealing with the Irish “Troubles”… a full scale and ruthless Islamic variety would be beyond their current capabilities.
In point of fact, as Katrina proved, a full scale breakdown in services caused by Islamic Jihad was beyond the US capability to solve (at least Democrat capabilities) two years ago. What Britain learned in Basrah should hopefully give their military the edge they will need to combat Islamic revolutions at home. And that, I think, is more important than Britain keeping their troops in Iraq.
make them realize that their bee-hind is on the line as well.
That remains to be seen. Even if the British people want security and safety (which they do), the monster they have created in the form of Labour is too powerful to defeat. Giving government power is easy, taking it away is… not so easy.
It’s gone beyond the open the eye stage, in my view. The AIDs infection has disabled a sizable percentage of Britain’s internal defenses. (and external if Thom’s right about their navy) The Islamic Jihad doens’t fight one on one, they use deception, they use hit and run, they use subversive tactics. Their strategy has always been not to hide themselves, but to disable the defenses of Western civilization through internal rot, and then have their agents inside open the gates for the barbarian horde.
Britain isn’t as bad off as France, for sure. But they face the same uphill battle as the rest of Western civilization. How do you defeat something that has spent 30-50 years corroding your institutions out from under you? Can you reverse the corrosion process in time before the foundation cracks? It’s possible, and so we’ll see.
It’s hard for us to see sometimes but Britain really wasn’t in a position similar to ours after WWII, untouched by war on a vast continent stacked to the gills with natural resources.
I wasn’t trying to claim that they had it better than the US. They did have their problems, but they also had some positives going for them such as the US aid program and reconstruction. It was their choices I was calling attention to. They set the path down which their nation would travel a long time ago.
So, I can’t really fault the British for being susceptible to the dream of socialism. It’s an alluring dream, especially to one that’s been through a whole wallop of trauma, but it’s dysfunctional at best and diabolically evil at worst.
The motivations about why Britain voted Labour are manifold, but one motivation was surprising to me. It was described before that the British felt a sense of unity during the London Siege and the war, and they wished to duplicate it for peace time, and they believed Labour-Soc was the way. There is an inherent problem with wanting the unity of war without having to pay the price of it (or the price of spirit for maintaining foreign colonies and influence).
While Christianity is declining, it is hard to tell which came first, the chicken or the egg. Meaning, did in fact Britain’s society and laws cause the populace to stop believing in things, aided by war fatigue? Or was the disbelief in religion a critical weakness which allowed in government tyranny?
Fighting for the faith is an interesting phrase. For King and Country, but Britain’s monarchy doesn’t bear a lot of resemblance to David Weber’s portrayals of constitutional monarchs who are also war leaders. If there is no faith to fight for and bureacracy replaces personal leadership and the individualism of a monarch… then what is left?
Britain’s being surrounded by continental Europe, both bureacratically from Brussels and immigration wise from the EU/Africa/ME situation. Their time for reversal is growing short, because if they cannot reverse their own problems in time, how will they deal with France’s nuclear arsenal and the entire Western European continent going up in smokes? The US would probably be tasked to provide overwatch security, but Britain’s going to be right there at the edge of the violence, it will affect them more than us in the short to medium run. So it is not just Britain’s problems that the British have to deal with. Just as it is not just the Middle East problem that the US will have to deal with in the long run, since we have nuclear arsenals in Europe, Pakistan, Russia, and China to deal with combined with the US immigration debacle.
Ymarsakar,
I don’t know what’s the tipping point for Britain, but I agree that it’s coming very soon. Past that point and it’ll be joker’s wild. Among my friends who’re interested in politics and the military, they’ve come to call Britain Air Base One since they can no longer hold their own as in a full partnership with the United States. I think this can be reversed, though I confess I don’t know what how much time they’ve got left.
Should they try to reverse, I would expect parts of Britain to violently protest, even riot, at the reforms…
There’s a recent article from the UK that’s illuminating to were the Brits are at psychologically. Their sentiments and identification definitely aren’t with the EU. They don’t even identify themselves as being British. They identify more with their local communities, their local villages. I’ll post up excerpts in a bit.
This could be a good thing or a bad thing. The Brits have always prided themselves on their local villages, where they came from. Heck, it’s only until recently that Americans identified themselves more as Americans than, say, Virginians or Georgians. This is yet another sea change in British mentality. Who knows where all this is heading?…
You see this? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6512927.stm