War Studies Society and Alumni Lecture
King’s College London, 2 October 2012
By Sir Nigel Sheinwald
LESSONS OF THE 9/11 DECADE
Thank you, Mervyn [Frost: Head of War Studies], both for your introduction and
for inviting me to give this lecture. You were kind about diplomats. Others are
less so. I recall Lord Norman Tebbit’s comment that the Ministry of Agriculture
looks after farmers, the Ministry of Defence looks after our armed services and
the Foreign Office looks after foreigners. The other day I read a review of a
recent biography of Thomas Wyatt, the poet and diplomat under Henry VIII. The
reviewer commented that Wyatt’s ‘hypocrisy and cynicism, which can make him
seem unappealing as a person, were however invaluable to him as a diplomat’.
So my former profession needs all the help it can get.
I’ve chosen as my subject today some reflections on the 9/11 decade, because it’s
a broad theme and a period in which I was involved as a British official in
Brussels, London and Washington. In the time available, it cannot be exhaustive;
it’s inevitably impressionistic, from the vantage point of a practitioner, with an
emphasis on the United States, where I served as British Ambassador until the
beginning of this year, and of course on the UK.
I shall start with 9/11 and counter-terrorism policy, and try to recap some
lessons from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, but with some sympathy for the
sheer difficulty of what we were attempting. In reviewing the international and
diplomatic landscape, I will reach a number of conclusions this evening:
- that, in a changed and unstructured world, America will nevertheless remain
the world’s most powerful nation for decades.
- that, while Western powers will not contemplate the use of large ground forces
for a long time, the intervention debate is still alive, with a premium inevitably
on practicality and care.
- that Europe needs finally to adapt from being the object of American power to
its partner;
- that the relationship with the US remains of great value to the UK, provided the
political risks are managed; and
- that Britain needs to avoid degrading its international assets any further; and
will reduce its appeal to the emerging powers if it loses traction with the
established ones – the United States and the rest of Europe.
I close with with the thought that, if the 9/11 decade was one dominated by
generals and intelligence chiefs, the next one badly needs creative and persistent
diplomacy, for example over Iran.
America’s Mood
There are 5 weeks to go until the US elections. The mood of the American public
is uncertain, and apprehensive – not unreasonably, after one of the most difficult
decades in American history. I mean: the sense of vulnerability and shock
induced by 9/11 itself; the pain of two very difficult wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;
the challenge to their economic and financial model inherent in the crisis of 2008
and recession which followed; the shift of economic power throughout the
decade to Asia and the South; and lastly the dysfunction of the US political system
itself and sense that the foundations of America’s post-war success and cohesion
are under threat.
Shakespeare said: ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in
battalions.’ Any country would be entitled to feel that a lot had changed for the
worse very quickly, and struggle to keep their bearings. The Ryder Cup won’t
have helped.
Many of these impacts were felt, but less keenly, elsewhere in the developed
world. Everywhere the spread of digital communication was a liberating force,
but with significant political and social repercussions. Matthew Taylor, Chief
Executive of the Royal Society of the Arts, recently wrote about the decline of
hierarchical authority and solidarity, two forms of social power, and the
increased power of the individual; historically low levels of public trust; and a
resulting power shortage or power failure in our society. It seems likely that
international as well as domestic factors played a part in this. That concept of
power shortage is not a bad metaphor for the state of world affairs today.
Counter-Terrorism
Until 9/11 America had had little direct experience of terrorism at home. The
reaction to it was unsurprisingly strong, and led to the Bush Administration’s
Global War on Terror. Americans were convinced that terrorism was the world’s
Number One threat and would be the defining issue of the century. Over eleven
years on, terrorism certainly remains high on the international agenda, but is not
the prism through which we see the world. GWOT under President Bush has been
superseded by a policy whose rhetoric and conceptual underpinning are
different, but whose practical expression is often similar, with the emphasis
under President Obama on stealth and stand-off rather than ground wars.
In Europe there was a different perception of the threat after 9/11, but also
disquiet over the GWOT approach, not least because it conveys a sense of
pessimism – that we are engaged in an existential fight to the death with Islamist
terrorism. But we are not. However disturbing each incident is, Al Qaeda cannot
defeat our free societies, and we should not stoop to matching ourselves against
them. We should display more strategic confidence. Britain’s and the rest of
Europe’s experience has also been that it’s best to deviate as little as possible
from the norms of criminal justice – better to take the oxygen and propaganda
value out of terrorism by treating it like other violent crime.
At the same time, the European consensus underestimated two things – the
global and long-term nature of the threat from Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and its
ideological character – we’re not dealing with a bunch of burglars or car thieves.
This will be a long struggle, requiring resilience, political will and determination
in politicians and the public. Sustained political violence is difficult to handle,
and can corrode community and international relations. The techniques it
requires of the state are significantly different from those needed for other types
of crime, even highly organised and large scale crime. The lesson for me is to
parse the threat accurately, and respond proportionately for the long term.
Iraq and Afghanistan
The wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq flowed from 9/11 too. Others have drawn
copious conclusions about our handling of these conflicts, and the British Iraq
Inquiry is still sitting. The main lessons for future conflicts seem to me to be:
the need for exhaustive planning both for the campaign and for the post-conflict
phase; the need to be prepared for the unexpected and maintain the ability to
adapt as conditions change and surprise us; the need to maintain momentum
and shorten the period of any occupation; the need to build in maximum
international legitimacy and sufficient allies, for political as much as military
reasons; the need to ensure sufficiently deep domestic public support for
conflicts which – on the basis of the Afghanistan and Iraq experiences – will take
longer than predicted; the need to maintain a strategic outlook, and understand
the regional aspects of the conflict; and lastly, the need for real civilian/military
cooperation and convergence on analysis and aims in theatre.
The truth is that we did some of all of these things in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some
of them were in our own hands, but a lot was not. In the case of Iraq, for example,
sensible British ideas on post-conflict management were brushed aside by the
Pentagon. By and large, the British contribution to political development in both
Iraq and Afghanistan went in the right direction, though of course there were
major problems of execution. In both theatres, but more relevant probably in
Iraq than Afghanistan, we faced the problem of being junior military partners to
the Americans, but of sharing the political risk. The lessons for intelligence primarily connected to the use of sources, the dangers of group think, and the
inherent limitations of intelligence - were spelled out just after the Iraq war, and
are now being applied.
In one sense, these lessons are academic, since it’s obvious that the US, Britain
and our allies are not going to be undertaking major ground occupations in the
foreseeable future. The positive outcomes in the 1990s in Bosnia, Kosovo and
Sierra Leone had made us over-optimistic, and Iraq and Afghanistan were plainly
of a different order – mainly Muslim populations of 25-30 million, with deep
problems before the conflict, and peoples bound to resent lengthy occupations.
Any truthful analysis needs to factor in the sheer difficulty of what we were
attempting, and the new levels of violence which people in Iraq, Afghanistan and
outside used post-9/11 to prosecute their objectives.
We’ve painfully realised the limits of military power. The pendulum has now
swung the other way. The Obama Administration practises what David Ignatius
of the Washington Post termed ‘strategic reticence’ and what a member of the
Obama White House team controversially called ‘leading from behind’. The UK
and other partners have become disillusioned with nation-building in the midst
of conflict – the record is obviously disappointing. And our Defence Review two
years ago downscaled our capacity to intervene militarily. But experience tells
me that military power, and the judicious but credible threat of the use of force
is, in certain circumstances, an indispensable adjunct to diplomacy.
Multipolarity and US/China relations
There can be no doubting the impact of Iraq and Afghanistan on American
confidence and influence. We are now in a palpably multipolar and contested
environment, where it is difficult for any country to get their way. No-one is ‘in
charge’. The Obama Administration have consciously chosen to be selective in
the way the US projects its power, whether military or political, recognising – as
in the case of the Arab Spring – that there are many issues the United States
cannot hope to have instant purchase on.
But all that, and the economic rise of China, India, Brazil and the rest (which of
course began well before 9/11), do not signal the inevitable early decline of the
US and its eclipse by others. For a while the declinists did cast their spell, but
more recently scholars such as Joseph Nye, Robert Kagan and Walter Russell
Mead have drawn different, and more subtle conclusions, which I for one find
persuasive.
Having lived in America over the past few years, it’s easy to see the downsides –
growing economic inequality, crumbling infrastructure, little sense of long-term,
national economic objectives, severe problems in public high school education,
unsustainable levels of public debt at all levels of government.
But the bull points are there too: the shale gas revolution and cheap American
energy for the next generation and longer; America’s demographic health
compared with Japan, China and Europe; a continuing edge in higher education,
research and innovation; the continued power – despite 2008 - of US financial
markets; American openness and connectivity in this networked world; its
enduring military superiority and comfortable geo-strategic positioning. US
defence spending is over 40% of the global total, and comfortably bigger than the
next 15 defence budgets combined. Chinese GDP will overtake America’s over the
next decade or so, but American per capita wealth will exceed China’s for
decades, maybe indefinitely.
The United States also derives power and influence from its alliances. Indeed the
capacity to build and maintain alliances is one of its real strengths. Alliances
come at a cost – to the leader, in terms of resources and effort; and to the
members, because of pressure to contribute and sometimes political risk. But
alliances help to magnify the leader’s power, and provide ways of influencing
events on a long-term basis, as well as indirect opportunities to trade and invest.
The long-term alliances that the US has with NATO in Europe, and with Japan,
South Korea and Australia in the Asia/Pacific region are significant building
blocks. China by contrast has notably uneasy regional relationships, and tends to
build overtly client-based relationships further afield, eg in sub-Saharan Africa.
In a world where power is, as today, more dispersed than before, alliances are
therefore important and very different in character from the strategic
partnerships which the US is rightly trying to build with China and other
emerging powers. With China the values base is insufficiently shared for an
alliance to be formed; with India and Brazil, the democratic foundation is there,
but the interests base is at present underdeveloped.
Nor is it clear that China will present a direct or conventional Great Power
challenge. Henry Kissinger described China’s approach as ‘gradualist;
harmonizing with trends and eschewing open conflict …… or territorial
domination.’ Despite the evident risks, Kissinger’s conclusion was that ‘relations
between China and the US need not – and should not – become a zero-sum game’.
So I treat the theory of US decline with some caution. As others have noted,
however, what is not in doubt is the decline and even demise of US-EuropeanJapanese trilateralism, with Japan and the EU as the main losers. The US itself,
though enjoying less relative power than before, will continue to be the most
influential world power over the next 20-30 years at least. Despite the pivot to
Asia and growing energy independence, I see America continuing as a global
player, active in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Europe as well as in the
Asia/Pacific.
Nor do I detect an American instinct to pass the leadership baton to others. For
sure, the Obama Administration has aimed to exercise that leadership at lower
risk – financially and in human and political terms; and be more selective about
using its power. But that does not mean that America will go quietly. The
conditions in which British leadership passed to America peacefully and, for the
most part, cooperatively in the last century do not seem to be present in the
American-Chinese relationship today, and arguably could not be without
fundamental political change in China.
These judgments equally should not obscure the degree of change. Power is
more fragmented, and the new economic pecking order will have its impact on
world politics and security over time. We made a start in the last decade on new
institutions to reflect this, the most important of which was the G20 – still in its
infancy, but a necessary innovation at the height of the financial crisis and a body
which could prove significant, despite the obvious obstacles, in the years ahead.
Certainly the financial crisis and subsequent recession have reminded everyone
of the primacy of economics – not the chief issue in the Cold War or immediately
afterwards, but the principal focus of political leaders across the globe today,
and a key determinant of the scope and ambition of countries’ foreign and
defence policies. A successful economy is plainly indispensable to active and
substantive international policies, as has been recognised for centuries. William
Pitt the Younger said in 1802: ‘We had a revenue equal to all Europe, a navy
superior to all Europe, a commerce as great as all Europe and …. A debt as large
as that of all Europe’.
The Use of Force
Meanwhile, interventionism is not dead, but as in the past, there will be case-bycase debates about the use of force, balancing liberal conscience and realpolitik.
Indeed most of today’s case studies show the peril of a black-and-white
adherence to either the values-based or realist schools of foreign policy. We
need both, but the experience of the last decade has inevitably placed a premium
on pragmatism and practicality.
The NATO action in Libya did not establish a new model of intervention, although
two elements (the drive for legitimation; and avoidance of ground forces) will be
important factors in Western counsels in the years ahead. In Syria, there is no
feasible scenario for Western military intervention, but plainly more that can
and should be done – practical, including military help to the rebels, further
sanctions, maybe at some point a humanitarian zone or corridor, with Turkey
taking the lead. As an aside, it’s worth noting that it’s not just the established
powers which find it difficult to have their way in today’s world – look at the
relative impotence of Turkish policy faced with a major crisis on its border.
Transatlantic Relations Now
The Libyan operation last year brought out several of the facts of life in today’s
transatlantic relationship. With the end of the Cold War and after the Balkans
spasm of the 1990s, Europe is no longer the principal theatre for American
foreign policy. Our role is as a partner in working on world problems, whether of
security or economics. But most Europeans have been slow to adapt, and
sometimes have appeared more worried about form (and the regularity of
summits) than the substance of cooperation. So the record is mixed, though it is
worth noting that a lot depends on effective and sensitive American leadership;
it’s not all about us on this side of the Atlantic. And it is not as though America has
an abundance of alternative allies waiting to step forward, more willing and
effective than the Europeans.
In the plus column, I’d put the handling of Iran, the Arab Spring including Libya for all the tensions during the campaign, and Burma. But – for different reasons –
Europe has been a less effective partner in relation to Russia (because of divided
counsels in the EU), Afghanistan and – significantly for the future – the
Asia/Pacific, where most Europeans are active only commercially, with little
thought for a joined-up strategic approach to the region.
There are criticisms on the European side, particularly over the Israel/Palestine
conflict, where Europeans have remained remarkably loyal to the US, but been
disappointed by the American performance over the past decade. For Europe,
the road to sound counter-terrorism and Iran policies leads though a functioning
peace process between Israelis and Palestinians - but it has to be said that the
prospects at present are poor.
For now, the Euro crisis is all-consuming in Europe and takes leaders’ minds off
the international challenges, as well as tarnishing Europe’s reputation. But
assuming the euro survives, and the European economy recovers, there will
certainly be demand for an active European international approach, particularly
on Iran, the rest of the Middle East, Asia and trade. With the Doha Round stalled,
there is now the prospect of an EU-US free trade agreement which would be a
real help to our recovery; Europe should push for negotiations to start next year.
I myself think that in a Union of 27, we need the impetus and drive of a few
countries leading the main elements of European foreign policy. It’s worked,
despite the institutional awkwardness, with France, Germany and Britain leading
on Iran; and I think this model could be extended in the future.
The UK-US relationship
The UK-US relationship is an important element in the wider transatlantic
partnership. It evokes strong feelings in the UK, and there’s always a body of
pundits desperate to knock it off its pedestal. It’s certainly important not to set
up unreasonable expectations of what it can achieve. Both the US and UK, and
particularly the UK, have less power than when the foundations of the modern
relationship were formed in the Second World War and its aftermath. We can’t
dispose of our power in the way Churchill and Roosevelt did. America has a
number of other special relationships – Canada and Mexico, Israel, Saudi Arabia,
Japan, Ireland – all very different. Ours starts with history and sentiment Britain is the most liked country in America after Canada. But that is combined
with: high levels of trade and investment and cultural exchange; intimate
university and research links which are critical for the UK’s future prosperity; a
level of mutual access and trust in the areas of defence and intelligence which are
still second to none in the world; and a record of candid and intense foreign
policy coordination.
Britain still has global defence, development and diplomacy assets – unlike most
countries whose focus is regional. So we bring a lot to the table – on the Middle
East, South Asia, terrorism, intelligence, pushing world trade, global health and
education, the environment; and so on. We derive value ourselves, for our
security, and prosperity – America is by far the biggest investor in the UK, as we
are in the US. But it’s also a fact of life that, as the junior partner, we probably
have to work harder to keep the relationship in good repair, and that the
asymmetry periodically causes political problems in the UK.
To my mind, the best antidote to this is to be clear about the benefits of a close
alliance with the US, to make clear that we cooperate because it is in our national
interest to do so, to recognise that our policies converge most of the time, but
where we disagree, to be prepared to say so. This would be the best way of
undercutting the idea that Britain acted, say, over Iraq not because our
government thought it was in the UK interest, but simply in order to maintain
good relations with the US Administration. I think that claim is false – the Blair
Government thought they were acting in the national interest on the merits, and
it is on that calculation that they must be judged.
Strategic relationships depend on countless transactions day by day. We have to
be useful to each other, and a test lies ahead for Britain in pursuing austerity
programmes AND trying to maintain the essence of full spectrum defence and
global diplomatic reach. Both are at risk today.
British Foreign Policy
So too is the essential underpinning and balance of our foreign policy. Since
World War Two, the twin foundations have been our relationships with the US
and the rest of Europe. Today the Government’s emphasis is on building links to
the new powers in the world. I agree completely that Britain too needs its Asia
pivot, and a lesser one to the South (Africa and Latin America) too, and that we
need to cherish traditional relationships in the Gulf and Commonwealth. But
with three caveats:
(i)
our companies will continue to find comparative advantage in the US and
Europe too – the first because the US economy will continue to produce
world-leading innovation and high growth sectors that we will want to
be part of; and Europe will obviously remain our home market. We can’t
have a commercial policy based only on emerging markets.
(ii)
Britain’s broader political and security objectives in the Asia-Pacific
region remain largely a blank page. It is not clear whether we perceive
the need for a British role going beyond trade. If we did, we do have
concrete assets we could use – long-standing (and sometimes
complicated) political and cultural relationships, sound defence links
with Australia and a number of other countries, our naval tradition,
expertise in cyber, military training and defence diplomacy, the
beginnings of a policy dialogue with China, and still a broad diplomatic
network. Are there things going on in the region which engage British
political and security interests, and if so, are we going to be involved
ourselves or subcontract this completely to the US, Australia and others
who are the key regional players? I know what my preference would be,
but our fiscal situation may rule this out.
(iii)
And most important: we must not ignore our history by reducing our
commitment to the US relationship, or ignore our geography by seeking
a new and more distant relationship with the European Union. In the
past it was: America or Europe? Now it seems to be either China, India,
Brazil and the ‘new powers’ or America and Europe.
But the truth is that these are not and cannot be mutually exclusive. Ray
Seitz, the former US Ambassador to London, said: "If Britain's voice is
less influential in Paris or Bonn, it is likely to be less influential in
Washington." To which one might add today: and if it’s less influential in
Washington and the capitals of Europe, what chance of it being taken
seriously in Beijing, Moscow and Delhi?
As I have said, the US will be the world’s most important power in the
decades ahead; and the UK cannot achieve significant foreign policy
goals without a productive relationship with Washington. I know from
personal experience that many countries in Asia and the Middle East
look to us as interpreters of American and European developments.
Instead of reducing our appeal, why not market the UK in this networked
environment as uniquely able to exploit its European, American and
international connections?
Of course the further integration of the euro-zone creates serious
structural problems for the UK. There is no democratic mandate here
for us joining a fiscal union or helping to bail out Eurozone members.
But there are other parts of the proposed banking union which we surely
want and need to be part of; and the fiscal disciplines the Eurozone is
likely to favour are going to be similar to the austerity programme we
have adopted in the UK – it is not as though we are on different political
and economic planets. My preference would be to negotiate a position
which genuinely reflects our economic interest in being fully part of the
Single Market and the political opportunity to continue to be a leading
voice on Europe’s foreign and trade policies, instead of sliding towards a
pattern of reflexive distancing.
Diplomacy
Let me conclude with a final point on diplomacy itself. The 9/11 decade was one
in which the generals and intelligence chiefs inevitably rose in importance in
most western countries. Their services are bound to be in demand in the
decades ahead too. But the unstructured, difficult and dangerous world we are in
cries out also for imaginative and determined diplomacy. After the Cold War,
some Foreign Ministries put the emphasis on functional themes, maybe put too
much faith in multilateralism, and lost some of their granular feel for countries,
cultures and regions.
Today, geography is back, along with the essential skills of local knowledge,
linguistic ability, acute analysis, rigorous policy formulation, and negotiation. In
all this diplomats need ideas and expertise from universities such as King’s. The
British historian Sir David Cannadine recalled Kate Adie, the journalist, speaking
at one of his conferences. ‘In the middle of a battle scarred landscape, she came
across a combatant, who looked like a bandit and might have been an assassin,
sporting a Che Guevara moustache, the look of blood lust in his eyes, two
magazines of bullets slung across his chest, and two pistols at the ready. Greatly
daring, but fearing the worst, Adie inquired as to his profession. ‘Madam,’ he
relied, as if the answer was self-evident, ‘I am a librarian’.
It’s said that all wars end around the negotiating table, but it would of course be
better to prevent them. Iran is a case in point. A nuclear-armed Iran would
present a grave threat to its region and beyond. It is not clear whether
deterrence or containment would work. The talks on Iran’s nuclear programme
continue, but have faltered.
It remains the case that the Iranian leadership is unlikely to consider giving up
the possibility of having nuclear weapons without greater certainty and
confidence in its relationship with its region and the rest of the world. So I would
strongly favour, after the US elections, a broadening of the dialogue with Iran to
cover regional issues, and the fundamentals of Iran’s relations with the world,
especially the West and the United States. The United States would need to lead
this effort, and I suspect it would need to be preceeded by the formation of a back
channel to build up trust and predictability between the two sides.
I recognise that this sounds a long shot, given the politics on both sides. But our
financial and other sanctions are hurting, increasing the cost of isolation to Iran.
If there is a possibility of Israeli or even US military action over the next couple of
years, I regard it as essential to test first whether a larger bargain can be
constructed, and at least to make the offer. On the table would be strict controls
on Iran’s civil nuclear programme and changes in its aggressive regional role on
one side, and on the other the progressive lifting of sanctions, development of
economic and political relations with the West, and Iran’s involvement in
regional dialogue.
Such an agenda would not be a sign of Western weakness. It would put real
pressure on, and confound parts of the Iranian system. If a serious negotiation
were, against the odds, to get going, the international community would need to
protect essential interests, but recognise that – given the self-evident direct and
indirect risks of military action – there would be value in even a preliminary or
partial agreement with Iran, if it could start to change Iranian behaviour and
move us down a path towards stabilizing what has been one of the most
disruptive and unpredictable factors in regional and international politics over
the past generation.
Conclusion
I acknowledged at the start that these reflections were impressionistic. They are
a mix of observation, prediction and prescription, and I’m conscious of the
danger of extrapolating too much from our recent experience. WH Auden wrote
that ‘hindsight as foresight makes no sense’. There’s always a danger of fighting
yesterday’s war. But I think I am right in believing that the 9/11 decade was a
historically significant one, and that disentangling its lessons is important for
policy today and tomorrow.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to be a visiting professor in this
distinguished department. I look forward to being part of the War Studies family,
and to debating these issues not just this evening but in the months ahead.
Thank you.