Rumble in "The Jungle"

So the French are planning to close down the makeshift camp where immigrants gather before launching their attempt to come to the land of milk and honey - or, rather, housing and benefits - England. How very thoughtful of them.

It's also rather considerate of them not to bulldoze the camp during the month of Ramadan as most of the camps occupants are Moslem - predominantly Afghan from what I understand. Although it does strike me as a bit silly to give them all advance warning of the fact that they are to be rounded up and deported - but hey, what do I know. I'm sure it has nothing to do with France wanting to be seen to do something about the problem rather than actually dealing with it.

But I've got an idea.

You see, it may have escaped their attention in France, but NATO is currently engaged in operations in Afghanistan - including reconstruction work (for some reason). So why not just round up all these immigrants, fly them back to Afghanistan and put them up in a makeshift camp there while their asylum claims are processed (and refused). While they are there they can be put to work - paid of course, we don't do slave labour - making the camp more comfortable and permanent with a water and power supply. Over the course of time, these camps will evolve businesses - shops, restaurants and so on - which will offer employment and pay.

Many of those people will learn valuable skills which can then be applied to build new camps for more immigrants and before you know it you have a virtuous spiral. We could call these camps "new villages" and, as well as providing material support, our troops could offer security and safety. Once it becomes established that these "new villages" not only offer the opportunity to earn a decent living, but provide safety from the Taleban word will get around and everyone will want one. Hey, you could even go as far as moving whole villages out of Taleban areas into safe havens - thus depriving the Taleban of the vital resources of food and men.

Once that is done, you can squeeze the Taleban militarily until their starving, weary and demoralised troops decide to call it a day.

Far fetched? It worked great in Malaya.

Ill served and ill equipped

The government have (rightly) come in for a lot of criticism over the deaths of a number of British soldiers in Afghanistan over the last few days. Although I don't wish to trivialise those deaths which are, of course, tragic for every individual family I do think they need to be considered in context - particularly the fact that they occurred during what is a major military operation. It is the nature of war that when an army goes out to actively seek and engage an enemy they will take casualties at a significantly higher rate than they would while performing routine patrols.

Let us not forget either that the war in Afghanistan is the one which most of our media and politicians deemed to be the "just" and "legal" war. Personally, I believe that any war is legal - what is illegal are certain methods used in fighting a war (and most of those illegal acts are committed by our enemies) and I was happy to support action in Afghanistan and Iraq - but not the continued occupation of those countries which I believe serves no useful purpose.

Politicians on all sides tell us that they are acting in British interests by keeping British soldiers out there, but I have yet to see any justification of this. What interest is being served? Okay - I admit that I have rather flippantly suggested that we are learning a lot about our weapons and equipment (which have proven to be woefully inadequate) as well as developing new tactics and strategies for for dealing with asymmetrical warfare - flippant, but also very valid - but this is not why we are told they are there for.

Furthermore, those lessons we are learning about our weapons and equipment being inadequate are not being acted upon. The lack of close air support (CAS) is not being addressed. Why? Because our leaders can not get their heads away from highly complex and incredibly expensive helicopters. Helicopters are incredibly useful machines in the right theatre and have proven to be extraordinarily effective against armour, but - aside from their transport capabilities - this isn't the right theatre and the enemy doesn't have any armour worthy of the name.

Perhaps one of the most telling facts about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is the fact that they have each lasted as long as or longer than the Second World War, but in that time there have been no significant development of new weapons. Partly this is due to the limited thinking that takes place in the MoD who have committed the bulk of armed forces spending to long term, ill conceived projects that are completely unsuited for the sort of warfare our soldiers are being required to fight, but it's also due to the lack of expertise and manufacturing capability we have in Britain.

Meanwhile, the most effective aircraft we have in the theatre is an aeroplane first designed in the 1950's and our soldiers are still equipped with a glorified rabbit gun. It's no coincidence that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have seen the re-emergence of the sniper armed with long range, high caliber rifles which is just about the only thing we have that can reliably hit a man at distance and make sure he bloody well stays hit.

So, given that our leaders are not bothering to listen to any of the lessons we are learning from these wars - what is the point of us staying there? What British interests are being served by our soldiers being in Afghanistan? In what way does the death of one of our lads help to improve the security of this nation - particularly given the fact that our government are still allowing all and sundry to pour into this country at will?

Like I said, I had no problem with us attacking Afghanistan (or anybody else that thinks they can use proxy warfare against Britain - and yes, that includes Iran) but only as a short, sharp invasion with limited and clear military objectives. Go in, achieve those goals - then get out again - leaving whatever regime was to emerge there in no doubt that they would get the same treatment even at the slightest suspicion that we were being threatened by their behaviour.

Our troops are being let down by our leaders by being left out on a limb. They don't know what they are doing there, they don't have the right equipment for what they can do there and the government have persistently failed to listen to any lessons that we have learned from there.

Time to get out.

Reality cheque

The excellent Janet Daley puts into words what I was thinking this morning regarding North Korea's missile test and various leaders condemning this as "unacceptable".

For that matter, what does he propose doing right now about North Korea? There was lots of heavy talk about how unacceptable that country's belligerent tour de force had been in firing what could have been a nuclear-armed missile over Japan – but talk, as they say, is cheap. What might the "punishment" be for such a "violation" of the coming nuclear-free world order? And who would be responsible for administering it?

Exactly. If you find something unacceptable you do something about it - or you tolerate it. Toleration does not imply acceptance, but if you tolerate something long enough it becomes considered acceptable. The fact is, NK's nuclear ambitions (as well as Iran's) may well be unacceptable to the leaders of the world, but the North Koreans know that there isn't a single thing they can do about it (as does Iran).

Their best buddies, the Chinese, will block any attempts to force through any serious UN Security Council resolution. The best they can hope for is slightly toughened sanctions - but as all these do is hurt the average Jong Public in the NK street I don't think the leaders of North Korea will worry too much. Besides, anything they need they can get through China - no questions asked.

They know that any military action will not get UN support - and without that (for some reason) that means there can be no widepsread public support for military intervention. Furthermore, with the US economy in freefall and their military already overstretched there is little the USA can do militarily. Which brings us to the next, excellent point Daley makes.

Post-war Europe has built its comfortable, deeply cushioned, welfare-state social democracy with the money it had once spent on armaments. Beating their swords into benefit payments has worked very nicely for all those peace-loving Europeans who turned their backs on militarism even as the Cold War raged. But it only worked because America was providing the arms and the defence protection that Europe highmindedly disdained.

Comfortable, deeply-cushioned and still completely unaffordable even with the money we once spent on defending ourselves. As Daley points out, Obama now wants that feather bed for his people and the message to Europe is clear - the US are not going to continue to pick up the tab for protecting Europe much longer.

Europe will have to fund its own defence and that is one big reality cheque.

NATO has served its purpose and a new alliance is needed

A thought provoking and insightful article on the Times is a rare thing these days so congratulations to Michael Evans for his piece today on the future of NATO.

In Afghanistan, for example, it has 50,000 troops throughout the country, but where is its political voice? Is Nato now just a troop-providing alliance that takes the flak when things go wrong and sacrifices its men and women without having a real say on the way forward for the country? This is one reason why the campaign there faces stalemate. Even in military terms, the alliance is not acting as a cohesive force in Afghanistan; individual member states present the US commander of its International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) with a kaleidoscope of national caveats that limit military action.

In truth, this has always been the problem for NATO - it's just that during the Cold War it was never seriously put to the test - but as Evans points out, in recent years NATO has been used as a political tool rather than a military alliance. And as Evans points out, the problems for NATO are exacerbated by other considerations.

The United Nations and other international bodies are in the forefront of the political game in Afghanistan but Nato just sends troops.

I make no secret of my belief that the UN is a curse on the modern world. An organisation that has done nothing to earn the respect or authority which so many people seem to think it warrants, but that doesn't excuse NATO from accepting the role of second fiddle to the UN in Afghanistan. Evans goes on to make some important points about NATO expansion.

Nato is in no position to offer an Article 5 guarantee - an attack on one member is an attack on all - to Georgia or Ukraine; yet there are ideological members of the alliance who believe that this fundamental principle must apply whatever the circumstances. If enlargement remains a priority under Mr Obama, this increasingly high-risk guarantee will need to be put into a more realistic context.

NATO was an organisation which made sense at the time and, during that time, it was clearly an organisation which was limited by the geographical threat. The core principle was deterring an attack on Western Europe by the Soviet Bloc forces which vastly outnumbered those conventional forces which the west could muster against them. But times have changed and the threat to Western Europe no longer comes from the Russian Bear.

As Evans points out, if Georgia had been a member of NATO before the mini-war in South Ossetia NATO would have been compelled to act in her defence, but the reality of that war is that Russia was not the aggressor - Georgia was. That whole event was a narrow escape for NATO and one which should serve as a lesson to those who advocate expansion.

NATO has served its time and is no longer necessary in my view. What is necessary is a new global alliance between states that have similar roots - an Anglosphere Alliance that would include the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and, possibly, South Africa.

Such an alliance between states that have so much in common makes more sense to me than an alliance between a group of disparate states which are rooted in a different history and are far from stable.