The plan that Blair and Chirac hatched will spell the end of the 'British' Army

Last week a furore rightly erupted over the insistence of Ministry of Defence officials that soldiers engaged in Iraq must face prosecution for alleged offences against the European Convention on Human Rights. Earlier this month in the House of Lords, six former Chiefs of the Defence Staff joined forces to protest that this posed a major threat to the morale and future efficiency of the British Army.

Only gradually emerging, however, from behind veils of official obfuscation, are the details of another, equally serious threat to the army's future, as MoD officials plan to lock it into a fully integrated "European army". This will be equipped largely by countries other than Britain, and will make it impossible for British forces either to operate independently or to fight alongside those of the USA.

The key decision in this remarkable story was taken not long after Tony Blair promised President Chirac in St Malo in 1998 that he was prepared to co-operate in setting up a "European defence identity", independent of Nato. Within little more than a year of that momentous meeting, Britain pulled out of a joint project with the Americans known as FSCS (Future Scout and Cavalry System), designed to reshape the future of warfare.

To grasp the scale of what was involved in this decision, one must appreciate that the conduct of war today stands on the edge of an immense revolution. Armies of the future will be completely reorganised to conduct what is known as "network-centric warfare", around a system in which men, vehicles, weapons and information-gathering are all electronically linked and co-ordinated via satellites.

When Blair met Chirac in 1998, as set out only months earlier in the Strategic Defence Review, Britain was still involved with the US on a 50-50 basis in developing the FSCS system. In January 1999 Britain and the US had confirmed a proposal first mooted under the Conservative government for a project known as Tracer (Tactical Reconaissance Armoured Combat Requirement). Contracts for this were awarded in 1999 to two consortia, both involving British companies.

Early in 2000, however, the British pulled out of this project (at a cost of £131 million), leaving the US to carry on alone with a more ambitious version, FCS (Future Combat System), which is today at the centre of US military planning. Britain switched to to develop its own cut-price version, Fres (Future Rapid Effects System).

The Fres concept lies at the heart of the plans being co-ordinated by the new European Defence Agency to set up a "European Rapid Reaction Force": in effect a fully integrated, 60,000-strong EU army, equipped with its own vehicles, weapons and satellite systems. It is into this autonomous "European defence identity" that the future of Britain's Armed Forces is now locked.

Two weeks ago I reported how the MoD had slipped out an admission that the cost of a new programme of vehicle-acquisition for Fres has soared from £6 billion to £14 billion, making it by far the most expensive project in British Army history. It had already announced that the MoD is to spend £1.6 billion buying trucks from Germany, which will also supply the logistical support system for Fres. Also part of the system is a fleet of light vehicles to be bought from Italy - although the MoD has done all it can to pretend that these are British-made.

Much of the EU's planned satellite network, including Galileo, set up as a rival to the US GPS system, is to be provided by France. From all these contracts British and US companies are excluded, to the point where, astonishingly, our main defence contractor, BAE Land Systems, following its purchase of United Defense, is now virtually an American company, supplying the US rather than the British Army.

In 1998 the Government published its Strategic Defence Review, most of which is now history. Yet as we stand on the edge of the most far-reaching defence revolution in our history, we get no explanation from our ministers as to what is going on, apart from stray, inadequate fragments slipped out by the MoD in the hope that no one is looking. Fortunately the evidence to support this extraordinary and complex story is being pieced together for a forthcoming paper by my colleague Dr Richard North. When published it ought to shake the cosy, blind little world of British politics to its foundations. I do not hold out much hope.

Since his handiwork has provided so much of my living in recent years, it might be appropriate for me to add to the tributes to Sir Edward Heath. I first professionally engaged with him in 1962 when a strip-cartoon I concocted for Private Eye with William Rushton first dubbed him "the Grocer". At the time of Britain's first bid to enter the Common Market, we showed him in Brussels discussing tariffs on such items as Indian tea and New Zealand butter - then returning to London to be hailed as a brilliant negotiator, after having conceded everything his would-be "partners" demanded.

In the 1990s this column gradually uncovered the shocking, long-suppressed story of how, in 1972, Heath had handed over Britain's fishing waters, as part of the price he was prepared to pay for his dream of finally getting us "into Europe". (In one of his last Commons speeches he wildly attacked this column, protesting that he could not have betrayed Britain's fishermen because, when he was a boy in Broadstairs, he had met some of them.)

But even more shocking was the evidence which came to light when Richard North and I were researching for The Great Deception, our history of the "European project", as to how Heath misled the British people when he applied to join the Common Market in the early 1970s.

As we can now see from documents released under the 30-year rule, Heath was aware that the real aim of the "project" was complete political, economic and monetary union, all of which he privately welcomed. We can also see how he deliberately sought to hide all this from the British people, and to maintain the fiction that it was just about joining a "common market".

It was perhaps inevitable last week that those paying tribute to the great man should not have highlighted this aspect of his career (not least because few were probably aware of it). One hopes in due time historians may come to a more balanced verdict.

This week's Fishing News contains a remarkable open letter to our fisheries minister, Ben Bradshaw, following a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice that France must pay a hefty fine for breaching the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy.

Arthur Cook, a respected senior figure in Britain's fishing industry, recalls how, at his first meeting with Mr Bradshaw, he raised the notorious skill with which France's fishermen, abetted by their national officials, cheat their way round the CFP rules, in particular those forbidding the landing of fish below a certain size.

Mr Bradshaw replied that the conduct of the French fishermen was "exemplary". When, in response to an invitation from one of his officials, Mr Cook supplied facts to contradict this, he received a dismissive reply discounting his evidence as "untypical". Mr Bradshaw then accused Mr Cook of being no more than a bigoted "Eurosceptic".

Now the ECJ has imposed a record fine on France for systematically breaking the rules over 20 years, notably those on the catching of undersize fish, which fetch high prices in French and Spanish restaurants.

In his letter to Mr Bradshaw, Mr Cook points out that the ECJ's ruling rather undermines his claims about French compliance with the law. He also sets out the history of this case since 1991, when the European Commission first took France to court for wholesale disregard of the landing-size rules.

When the ECJ ordered France to comply, its ruling was ignored. In 1996 and 2000, it sent further "reasoned opinions" ordering France to obey its ruling. On the second occasion, it ordered France to pay a daily fine of €316,500 until it could show compliance. When, after France's failure to pay up, the ECJ eventually commuted this to a lump sum fine of €155 million, France appealed, claiming that the ECJ had no power to impose such fines, and twice lost.

The ECJ has now agreed to reduce the fine to €20 million, plus €57 million for each six months of non-compliance. As yet there is no sign of the French paying up, or of French fishermen and officials complying with the law. Mr Bradshaw, no doubt, will continue to maintain that the conduct of the French is "exemplary", while his officials continue to harass British fishermen in every way they can devise.

Margot Wallstrom, the EU's "communications" commissioner, tells the Financial Times that, as part of a new "action plan to improve communicating Europe", the Commission is to set up a "rapid rebuttal unit" to "counter false claims" about EU regulations. She yet again gives as an example the "outlandish story" that there is a law laying down that "cucumbers had to be straight".

If Mrs Wallstrom looked at Commission Regulation 1677/88 she would, of course, see that it is illegal to sell top-grade cucumbers unless they are "practically straight" (helpfully defined as "an arc not exceeding 10mm per 10cm length of the cucumber"). Naturally one cannot expect the Commission's propaganda minister to bother with the truth. But does it not say something about the Financial Times that it can still relay this kind of garbage without a blush?

Britain won't change its policies.

That became clear, really, when the ECJ ordered the British to allow open homosexuals in the British Armed Forces, and Britain obeyed.

Armed forces are a core national sovereignty issue.
No matter how "integrated" Europe is, for example, do please note that the force-de-frappe, France's nuclear arsenal, will not ever be under joint command. It will remain the exclusive national asset of France.

Why do I bring this up?
I bring it up, alongside the fisheries issues in the article posted, and alongside the exclusion of British beef in spite of European rulings to the contrary, to make something crystal clear: all nations in Europe are NOT equal.

Britain and France are about equals in most measures of power, and yet France has the upper hand in Europe for a simple and fundamental reason: French politicians have always understood the European Union to about FRANCE, about what is good for FRANCE. Integrate homosexuals into the French military?
Pffft.
No ECJ order would come down commanding it, because the French do not care, and culturally it is not a thing that is likely to come up within the ranks of the French army anyway, anyone exposing himself as a pede being very likely to be beaten to a bloody pulp so often he will leave.
But the British had their official policy, but then redrew the terms of their Army in order to suit a rule from a court.
Contrast this with the French fisheries order.
The ECJ can hand down its pronouncements until doomsday.
Of course France will not pay 360 millions, or 115 millions, or 57 millions, or 2 millions. France is not going to pay ANYTHING. The ECJ has no power to do anything about it, and the British, certainly, are not going to withdraw from Europe over it.
Therefore, France will win and Britain will lose on the issue.

Why does this always happen?
It happens because there are, for some reason, naive idealistic fools in British high offices who think that abstractions like "Europe" and the like are more important than the interests of Britain. These are the Neville Chamberlains and the Heaths of British history, the men of whom William Shakespeare wrote in Henry V "but France hath thy fault in thee found out: a nest of hollow bosoms".

These men act in the interest of these abstractions, or abstractions like "the law" (and change the rules of the British Army), rather than looking to their own country's interests. Their opposite numbers are the Churchills and Thatchers, who the British allow to run their country in times of terrible peril and reverse the results of the drift of these other leaders. But for the most part the British do not like strong nationalist leaders. They vote them out of office as soon as the crisis has past, and reach for someone who will cozy up to these grand ideas and ideals.

The French NEVER do this.
Not ever.
The only French leader in memory who was not operating for France was Chirac with his strange careering after the European Constitution. The French voters, of course, sent that plunging to the bottom of the sea because it was not good for FRANCE.

England's greatest defense asset is its "special relationship" with America, forged by bands of common language and history and law. This has allowed Britain to hit far outside of her weight in world affairs since World War II, the end of which saw Britain as destroyed as the rest of Europe and losing its grip on Empire, yet with greater influence because the Americans were willing to backstop their British friends.

So now, for a mess of Brussels Sprouts, the British are dismantling their special relationship with America to integrate into a "European Defense" pole, whose PURPOSE is to provide a chasse gardee for European defense contractors within Europe.
Note, please, that the highest high tech: satellites and the like, is concentrated in the huge French defense export industry, which not only then has French forces to arm, but also all of Europe.

Why the British do this to themselves repeatedly is a mystery. It is not to their benefit at all. It is, perhaps...well, why speculate?
The point is that Britain does indeed do this, and it is not good for Britain.

By contrast, Brussels and Strasbourg say a great number of things to France too, and France selectively listens, and only when it is in France's self interest.

Why the British wish to allow themselves to ultimately be rolled by the French is one of the mysteries of the world. That they persistently do so is merely observable.

France hath indeed thy fault in thee found out.
But even pointing this out - and it is blazingly obvious if one just LOOKS - it doesn't matter. Tabloid frog-jousting seems to appease the nationalist elements enough in Britain. The French are ridiculed in the press and the issue is forgotten.
But then six months later, and five years later, Aerospatiale still has all the satellite contracts, and the French fisherman are still doing as they damned please, British beef still doesn't debark in Cherbourg, open gays are allowed populate the British Army (because Europe said so)...but the force-de-frappe remains French, and as off the table to negotiation as the Agricultural subsidy.

If I were British, I would be very angry at my government.
But then, when French people get very angry at their government, they block roads and go on strike and shut down the country until the government capitulates.
When the British get very angry at their government...
the government is re-elected by a nice margin.

I do not understand the British.
Why do you do this to yourselves?

"The main thing intended is to hamper the ability of the UK to field an independant military operation, and also to deny the US the assistance of a first-rate associate in any future operation of ours."

No, that's not it.
That is an ancillary effect.

The main thing is to obtain the monopoly over provision of military equipment to all European militaries in favor of the big European defense contractors.
The biggest European defense establishment is in France.
And the most profitable systems are the high-tech...as in Aerospatiale, Dassault, Thomson...

Integrated defense requires the use of space.
The European Space Agency is run by France out of Kourou down in French Guiana.

Nobody is interested in "weakening British defenses".
The point is to gain the monopoly over contracts to the British armed forces.

Don't think defense as related to actually fighting anybody.
Who?
Think defense as a multi-billion dollar industry that right now has a major European nation spending a lot outside of Europe.
Now, integrate and keep that money in Europe.
That's good.
And especially in France.
That's better.

That's the game.
Of course France will win it, because the countervailing position is not something the Americans are going to be willing to entertain. American politics and concepts of security are NOT sufficient to allow the full integration of US high tech with Britain at every level. The Americans are always going to hold back the very best, and they are not going to share profits with the British government. The French offer a sweeter economic deal, and the British are a trading nation.

In the end, military policy is going to be subordinated to trading interests, because there is no British Churchill nor Thatcher on the horizon.

"I would say: judge the British Army by its actions, not by the words of our politicians, which change from week to week. I agree with you about France though. I think many FReepers have a simplistic view of the French. They are very nationalistic, and very shrewd."

As Kipling's poem about France goes:
"Where did you refrain from us, or we refrain from you?
Ask the wave that has not watched war between us two!
We were schooled for life's dear sake to know the other's blade.
What can 'blood and iron' make more than we have made?
We have learned through keenest use to know the other's mind.
What can 'blood and iron' loose that we cannot bind?"

Certainly the British Army, and the Royal Navy and Air Force are magnificent instruments. None can deny it. At Brest (the Ecole Navale) there were long and engaged considerations as to whether France could have pulled off the Falkland's operation, so very far away at the end of such a tenuous supply line, without air cover.

Indeed, there is no greater flattery than imitation, and it was the effectiveness of the small, professional British forces that France had in mind when the general conscription was ended and a fully professional force was instituted a few years ago by Chirac.

British soldiers are very disciplined and have always been tough. British generalship has been more uneven, from brilliance in a few cases (of painful memory), disastrous incompetence in a few other cases, plodding and uninspired, but very good on defense in many more.

The notion expressed here that France is somehow trying to bring down the British or the British Army is absurd.
There is great respect for the British armed forces among the professional French military.
Not awe. That is reserved for the Americans, really, and only then because the Americans not only have very good equipment and relatively well-trained forces, but because they have Russian-proportioned quantities of them.
America is invincible, and on balance this is a good thing.
It does not, however, mean that there is no need for French, British or European Armed forces.

No, France does not want to see any degradation in the quality or capacity of the British armed forces.
What France wants is the bulk of the armanents contracts.
And looks likely to get them!

"From each other's throat we wrenched valour's last reward:
that extorted word of praise gasped 'twixt lunge and guard..."

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