For all the riotous applause that David Cameron has received from the Tory faithfuls for his stunning election victory, the new administration’s inaugural meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) last week was a sobering reminder of the enormous challenge he faced if he had to restore Britain’s standing as a world power. With a crucial election to be won, Cameron and senior ministers may be excused their recent spell of absenteeism from world affairs.
And last Tuesday’s convening of the first all-Conservative Cabinet for 18 years should help to allay concerns about any further erosion of Britain’s international standing, such as scrapping the Trident nuclear deterrent, which remained a distinct possibility only week before last when the opinion polls were still suggesting Labour could form a coalition with the Scottish National Party (SNP).
The new Cabinet is unanimously in favour of Trident renewal, so work can begin in earnest on building a like-for-like replacement as part of the next Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), which commences its deliberations this summer. But if Britain’s future as a nuclear power is assured, last Monday’s NSC meeting — the first one Cameron attended since his re-election — would have shown that the same cannot be said for its overall standing on the world stage, where the past five years have witnessed a sharp reduction in Britain’s ability to influence events.
The extent of Britain’s decline was visible week before last as Cameron made a last-ditch appeal for the votes of so-called shy Tories. Visiting Washington to unveil a bust of Sir Winston Churchill at the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, Britain’s top brass found themselves subjected to tough questioning by their American opposite numbers about its defence capabilities.
In Churchill’s day, Britain’s active participation in the transatlantic alliance was never in question. But in the wake of the Coalition’s defence cuts, such guarantees can no longer be taken for granted. Thus, in the US-UK Combined Chiefs-of-Staff meeting that followed the ceremony, General Sir Nick Houghton, the head of Britain’s Armed Forces, was asked searching questions by his hosts about Britain’s ability to make any meaningful contribution to future combined military operations with Washington.
So far as the Americans are concerned, the alliance is only worth persevering so long as Britain is able to contribute the equivalent of a division-strength formation for joint operations. But in view of recent reductions to the Army, which has seen the regulars cut by 20 per cent to around 80,000, sceptical American generals fear Britain would struggle to raise a brigade-size force — around half the commitment it has made during the recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But it is not just the depletion of Britain’s military resources that is causing concern in Washington, as well as many other world capitals. It is the growing perception that Britain is becoming more inward-looking, partly as a result of the continuing threat the SNP’s electoral success poses to the future of the Union and partly because of the Tories’ distracting determination to negotiate a new deal with the European Union. As the Washington Post noted in the wake of last week’s election result: “At a time of growing US frustration with its closest ally, Britain may be drawn even further inward and away from global affairs.”
Recent diplomatic developments certainly seem to suggest that, as matters stand, British concerns barely register in the deliberations of other world leaders. For example, at the time Cameron was basking in the acclamation of the Tory backbench 1922 committee last week, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, was preparing to fly to the Black Sea resort of Sochi for a surprise summit with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for talks on a wide range of issues, including the conflict in Ukraine and Iran’s nuclear programme. While the US and other European powers such as France have played a prominent role in these issues, Britain has been virtually invisible.
Britain was the notable absentee during the Franco-German negotiations at Minsk to arrange a ceasefire in Ukraine’s brutal civil war, while France has emerged as the most hawkish western negotiator in the talks over the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. In both instances, Foreign Office officials insist they are working hard behind the scenes in support of the initiatives. But critics see it more as a case of Downing Street copying US President Barack Obama’s concept of “leadership from behind”.
This “unmistakable erosion in British power” — as the Washington Post has described it — has not gone unnoticed. Week before last, French President Francois Hollande found himself in the novel position of being feted in a number of Gulf states that, historically, have regarded themselves as lying firmly within Britain’s sphere of influence. But concern over Britain’s waning influence has prompted Gulf leaders to explore new potential allies. This is just one example of the profound damage that has been done to Britain’s global standing during the past five years — one that Cameron must act swiftly to repair if Britain is to have any chance of reclaiming its status as a world power.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2015
