This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
Like it or not, the world will always have hegemonic powers, and for all its flaws, the USA has been more benign than any other hegemonic power in history.
Plainly, the UK has nothing like the resources to be a hegemonic power, and the European nations definitely don’t have the will to be, collectively. But we should at least be boosting our defence expenditure, to something like 3% of GDP.
Bung up inheritance tax. That’ll delight the base.
WRT IHT, one can just let rising property prices do the work of dragging more estates into the net. Or alternatively, cut the rates, but abolish most exemptions and reliefs. In reality, it's the most painless of taxes.
Lovely to know that all that hard-earned wealth mum and dad built up over their lifetimes is going to be spaffed up the wall by The Clown and his little care assistants.
Much of the apparent 'wealth' is due to inflation. That is, built up (if that's the right description) not by the 'wealthy' but by the community.
My bungalow, bought 20+ years ago, admittedly rather cheaply, is now worth, according to Rightmove's website, slightly less than twice what we paid for it. We've made a few improvements, but nothing whatsoever to justify that!
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
Like it or not, the world will always have hegemonic powers, and for all its flaws, the USA has been more benign than any other hegemonic power in history.
Plainly, the UK has nothing like the resources to be a hegemonic power, and the European nations definitely don’t have the will to be, collectively. But we should at least be boosting our defence expenditure, to something like 3% of GDP.
Bung up inheritance tax. That’ll delight the base.
WRT IHT, one can just let rising property prices do the work of dragging more estates into the net. Or alternatively, cut the rates, but abolish most exemptions and reliefs. In reality, it's the most painless of taxes.
Lovely to know that all that hard-earned wealth mum and dad built up over their lifetimes is going to be spaffed up the wall by The Clown and his little care assistants.
IHT is a rounding error.
It raises about £5bn a year. That is approx 0.6% of UK Govt tax raised.
By comparison £30bn a year is spaffed each year on making house price rises into free money for the house owners.
Not taxing something is not the same as spending. And residential property stamp duty in a normal year raises over £15bn, so you need to rework your numbers.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
From a British angle we were subject to the whims of either the US or the EU, and to an extent that should absolve Johnson/Raab from some of the fallout.
My understanding however is Macron for one saw the writing on the wall and pulled his embassy before the fun started. So when it comes to aportioning blame where were Johnson and Raab when the French saw the light?
Your defence of Johnson is one of, "but this is Biden's omnishambles", and it is, but I can't vote Biden's incompetence out of office, I can Johnson's.
I have a certain sympathy for both Biden and Johnson, because to a degree they were made hostages to fortune by Doha. Nonetheless, in both cases utterly shambolic execution of the cluster**** occurred on their watches.
A friend of mine returned from Afghanistan a few weeks ago but I neglected to ask him why, as one doesn't of such people.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence.
Unfortunately it's going to take a few more harsh lessons before the tories come to terms with these realities.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
I think we should be welcoming far more than 20,000 over 5 years and your response is a deflection
Deflection of what? In response to criticism of Dominic Raab you replied, "Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus?"
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
I think we should be welcoming far more than 20,000 over 5 years and your response is a deflection
How many should we be taking?
I have seen various numbers - most seem to be calculated by saying that 20k isn't enough, rather than any factual basis...
How many Afghans (and their dependents) are in the various risk categories as a result of association with the UK?
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
I've taken the 1.17 available on "Yes", he only needs to survive 13 days. Given Williamson is still Ed Sec I don't think Raab is very likely to be fired at all in the next fortnight.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
How much is the US subsidising the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system? Trident is 100% dependent on the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Georgia. What if ‘America First’ means that they are no longer happy with puppet states holding the trigger on their (extraordinarily expensive) weapons system?
The UK made a strategic error when it abandoned its independent nuclear deterrent and became dependent on US goodwill. That goodwill was always going to run out some day.
How else could the UK deliver nuclear warheads?
- heavy bombers? - tank rounds? - mortar rounds? - drone? - Boris Bikes?
I'd be delighted if the US would rid us of Trident, but I suspect Britain would find a way. One option would be to work more closely with the French, with whom we already have a close bilateral defence relationship.
Given the scenario you posit would almost certainly involve the US leaving NATO, a much closer defence relationship with France in response would be inevitable. Doesn't seem like a stretch for that to include burden-sharing on a nuclear deterrent.
A more left-field option would be Japan. One could imagine that a scenario where the US stepped away from Europe would leave its Pacific allies nervous about the reliability of the US as a protector against China. Although Japan might be willing and able to develop a nuclear deterrent alone, they might find it easier politically to do so as part of a partnership with Britain.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
I'm struggling with the logic here. The British had no say in the twenty year operation as they were just gofers for the Americans but did it to maintain our special relationship as America's 'Top Poodle' ......
........but those European countries 'shackled to the EU' who chose to have nothing to do with it should now clean up the mess?
Does anyone really think NATO, led by the US, would intervene in places like Ukraine or Taiwan?
The period of American hegemony is over. Probably started with Obama, confirmed by Trump and Biden
TBH, I would have thought Taiwan was pretty well indefensible against China. It can do a lot of damage to an attacker, but at the end of the day sheer weight of numbers will prevail. IIRC, though, at the end of WWII, although part of Japan, it was by-passed in favour of an attack on Japan itself, which might suggest that the terrain isn't one which is easily taken over, although, of course at the time the Japanese Navy wasn't in any position to defend the Homeland.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
America was not a reliable friend even pre-Trump. Remember that at the height of the Special Relationship, President Reagan invaded Grenada without a word to Mrs Thatcher, and even in the Second World War, the United States effectively cut out Churchill from post-war planning between the USA and USSR. It was a friend, no doubt, but a hard-headed one.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
Politicians do and so do you in some way. Say an international injustice occurs, from natural disasters to military ingression, what do you instinctively think the UK's reaction should be. That is your view of our status.
How much is the US subsidising the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system? Trident is 100% dependent on the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Georgia. What if ‘America First’ means that they are no longer happy with puppet states holding the trigger on their (extraordinarily expensive) weapons system?
The UK made a strategic error when it abandoned its independent nuclear deterrent and became dependent on US goodwill. That goodwill was always going to run out some day.
How else could the UK deliver nuclear warheads?
- heavy bombers? - tank rounds? - mortar rounds? - drone? - Boris Bikes?
I'd be delighted if the US would rid us of Trident, but I suspect Britain would find a way. One option would be to work more closely with the French, with whom we already have a close bilateral defence relationship.
Given the scenario you posit would almost certainly involve the US leaving NATO, a much closer defence relationship with France in response would be inevitable. Doesn't seem like a stretch for that to include burden-sharing on a nuclear deterrent.
A more left-field option would be Japan. One could imagine that a scenario where the US stepped away from Europe would leave its Pacific allies nervous about the reliability of the US as a protector against China. Although Japan might be willing and able to develop a nuclear deterrent alone, they might find it easier politically to do so as part of a partnership with Britain.
We of course cannot and must not ever give up our nuclear deterrent.
We need it to protect against Russia just as Japan needs one to protect against China
These are all legitimate questions but the answer is we really do not know
The one thing we do know is that the UK acting as the world's policeman is over and that NATO seems to have become wholly impotent
Everything has changed in a matter of a few days, and maybe it is a good thing that the UK has to accept that it must avoid foreign interventions and invest in its intelligence and security services at home
I would assume any future military intervention in Afghanistan, if it was necessary, would be from a distance and by precision bombing. Re entering Afghanistan is just not going to happen
Cyclefree is bang on the money here. Trendy types that have bemoaned America being the “world’s policemen” have no idea what they are talking about.
The world is a dangerous place, with powerful ideologies completely incompatible with the one that lets us live generally pleasant lives in the West. Chinese Communism being one, Wahhabism another. Don’t rule out Russian nationalism either. And there will be more birthed.
If we are now in an era where America has vacated moral leadership of the world, do not be surprised how little time it takes for someone else to try and fill the gap. Indeed China already is but most remain blind to this. Most pertinently by European governments (including in the UK), who still take a wholly transactional approach to understanding Xi’s China.
That video Leon played last night (“are we now solely relying on diplomacy with the Taliban?”) was one of the worst clips I’ve ever seen. It showed the US military up as impotent, chaotic and with more than a whiff of the keystone cops.
I’ve never been more afraid for the world being left to my children as I have this week.
Europe is well capable of filling some of the gap, if it wants to, and that's also the only arena where Britain will have anything approaching independent input. Britain, France and Germany in combination are well capable of exerting military influence, let alone the addition of Scandinavia, or Mediterranean states, who are now in an unofficial alliance from France to Cyprus.
Europe, or Canzuk or both are capable but only where there is the will. But sadly the West is burdened with an historically poor generation of political leaders more or less across the board.
By the way the idea above that it doesn’t matter if China takes Taiwan, who cares we’ll just trade with them anyway. What happens when Xi decides, “do you know what? From now on I’ll keep these semiconductors for myself thanks.”
It is misunderstood by so many that almost everything the CCP does is seen by them first and foremost through the prism of its military, and secondly its strategy for domination for the Hans (technological, economic, military, even cultural). It is a racially based ideology, with a very long memory and is very patient indeed.
Why do you think they are so fussed about tying up ownership of copper mines everywhere in the world? They’re used in bullets. I don’t expect it will be long before they start mining Afghan neodymium either.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Liz Truss, at least, still thinks we are really big economic power. Look at all the deals she's doing!
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
Is this infographic missing a whole host of nations ?
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
I think we should be welcoming far more than 20,000 over 5 years and your response is a deflection
How many should we be taking?
I have seen various numbers - most seem to be calculated by saying that 20k isn't enough, rather than any factual basis...
How many Afghans (and their dependents) are in the various risk categories as a result of association with the UK?
This is a fair question and of course this returns to my point about the EU and just how many refugees they will accept as part of a resettlement programme following this debacle
We cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and of course there is a question of screening out those who would harm us
This is not a simple problem but I did hear Boris say that the numbers to be accepted will be under constant review and I expect more than 5,000 this year will be allowed in
Does anyone really think NATO, led by the US, would intervene in places like Ukraine or Taiwan?
The period of American hegemony is over. Probably started with Obama, confirmed by Trump and Biden
Ukraine yes, as would NATO, Taiwan probably not.
Yes the US is no longer the supreme superpower but has to share that role with China.
However that does not mean the US has to kowtow to China and retreat from the world as Biden seems to be doing, following from Trump the last 2 US Presidents have been the most isolationist in the last 100 years.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
America was not a reliable friend even pre-Trump. Remember that at the height of the Special Relationship, President Reagan invaded Grenada without a word to Mrs Thatcher, and even in the Second World War, the United States effectively cut out Churchill from post-war planning between the USA and USSR. It was a friend, no doubt, but a hard-headed one.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
Politicians do and so do you in some way. Say an international injustice occurs, from natural disasters to military ingression, what do you instinctively think the UK's reaction should be. That is your view of our status.
I think you are right, with a caveat.
I think people care, but they are more realistic than thought. The number of people who assume the public (particularly the Brexity element) think or desire we be a superpower and thus be 'surprised' or upset we are not is I think far higher than the actual number.
We see it all the time, possibility as the WW2 nostalgic do it alone types are noisy - but tell most people we are a significant but not great power and I think they doby mind that.
Biden doesn't want to do endless corruption-breeding troop-killing counter-insurgency things. The Americans didn't want to do any such things before Bush-Cheney, and they didn't get themselves into any new ones after Bush-Cheney. These wars were a mistake, and they've known this for well over a decade, but given the likely clusterfuck that would follow it was always easier to stay a bit longer than leave.
That doesn't mean they don't want to spend ungodly sums of money on impressive weapon systems and fight glorious overseas military campaigns from the air or the sea. If anything Biden will be on the look out for someone to bomb to repair his relationship with the blob.
I think this is mostly an excellent point, with one caveat: Biden is under a certain amount of pressure from specific elements of his party on support for Israel. If it is no longer clear that the US will stand behind Israel, then suddenly out and out war in the Middle East becomes a distinct possibility. And the answer to the last question posed in the article is in part that Israel absolutely will defend itself, and won't particularly care what anyone else thinks about that.
The anti-Israel faction of the Democratic Party is like 4 or 5 people, even Bernie didn't really go there, and Biden defeated it decisively in the primaries. Biden is under no pressure there at all.
It's four people at House level - quite a bit bigger below that. Even then, I would agree with you, except that one of the four is AOC, and I still see her as the most likely challenger to Harris in 2024.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
Be fair. Mr G has made his dislike of Ms Patel clear.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
I'm struggling with the logic here. The British had no say in the twenty year operation as they were just gofers for the Americans but did it to maintain our special relationship as America's 'Top Poodle' ......
........but those European countries 'shackled to the EU' who chose to have nothing to do with it should now clean up the mess?
Are you serious?
Most EU countries were involved in Afghanistan in some form or other and are you suggesting that on humanitarian grounds alone, the EU should turn its back on the dispossessed from Afghanistan
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
Politicians do and so do you in some way. Say an international injustice occurs, from natural disasters to military ingression, what do you instinctively think the UK's reaction should be. That is your view of our status.
I must have missed the emergency parliamentary debate on Haiti. As for May's speech, why the hell should Britain be present on the streets of Kabul ?
The politicians bang on about global Britain but most people would much rather we took something along the lines of Ireland's view on foreign policy.
How much is the US subsidising the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system? Trident is 100% dependent on the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Georgia. What if ‘America First’ means that they are no longer happy with puppet states holding the trigger on their (extraordinarily expensive) weapons system?
The UK made a strategic error when it abandoned its independent nuclear deterrent and became dependent on US goodwill. That goodwill was always going to run out some day.
How else could the UK deliver nuclear warheads?
- heavy bombers? - tank rounds? - mortar rounds? - drone? - Boris Bikes?
I'd be delighted if the US would rid us of Trident, but I suspect Britain would find a way. One option would be to work more closely with the French, with whom we already have a close bilateral defence relationship.
Given the scenario you posit would almost certainly involve the US leaving NATO, a much closer defence relationship with France in response would be inevitable. Doesn't seem like a stretch for that to include burden-sharing on a nuclear deterrent.
A more left-field option would be Japan. One could imagine that a scenario where the US stepped away from Europe would leave its Pacific allies nervous about the reliability of the US as a protector against China. Although Japan might be willing and able to develop a nuclear deterrent alone, they might find it easier politically to do so as part of a partnership with Britain.
Interestingly, Trident was an example of rather smart procurement, in terms of money.
LockMart had quoted a price per missile to the US Navy. With a reduction in price if X more were ordered.
When the UK order was added in, because it was for identical missiles to the US Navy buy (and part of a common "pool" or missiles), this triggered the price reduction for *all* missiles. So the UK got the price cut and the US Navy did as well.
Apparently some C suite types at LockMart were spitting blood over that for years...
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
I think we should be welcoming far more than 20,000 over 5 years and your response is a deflection
How many should we be taking?
I have seen various numbers - most seem to be calculated by saying that 20k isn't enough, rather than any factual basis...
How many Afghans (and their dependents) are in the various risk categories as a result of association with the UK?
This is a fair question and of course this returns to my point about the EU and just how many refugees they will accept as part of a resettlement programme following this debacle
We cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and of course there is a question of screening out those who would harm us
This is not a simple problem but I did hear Boris say that the numbers to be accepted will be under constant review and I expect more than 5,000 this year will be allowed in
It's 10K this year - the interpreters etc plus families are an additional 5K.
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
The thing about a policeman is that they are there to protect you from the bad guys, but you in turn are protected from the police by the law. The resentment of the US role arises because of the absence of this second-level of protection.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
America was not a reliable friend even pre-Trump. Remember that at the height of the Special Relationship, President Reagan invaded Grenada without a word to Mrs Thatcher, and even in the Second World War, the United States effectively cut out Churchill from post-war planning between the USA and USSR. It was a friend, no doubt, but a hard-headed one.
Yet it was US troops in western Europe which were key to preventing the USSR from invading, as well as UK and French nuclear weapons which the US assisted with
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
America was not a reliable friend even pre-Trump. Remember that at the height of the Special Relationship, President Reagan invaded Grenada without a word to Mrs Thatcher, and even in the Second World War, the United States effectively cut out Churchill from post-war planning between the USA and USSR. It was a friend, no doubt, but a hard-headed one.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US state department was banging on about "losing South America"
While the NSA was sending us real time decrypts of the Argentinian communications.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
America was not a reliable friend even pre-Trump. Remember that at the height of the Special Relationship, President Reagan invaded Grenada without a word to Mrs Thatcher, and even in the Second World War, the United States effectively cut out Churchill from post-war planning between the USA and USSR. It was a friend, no doubt, but a hard-headed one.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
Be fair. Mr G has made his dislike of Ms Patel clear.
And yet gives her tacit support by deflecting away from our own shameful record to try and have a pop at an EU whose members have a much better record.
Did we not once have a close relationship with Japan...... ancient, long lasting monarchies with significant hang-overs from feudalism and all that......, before first the USA rather spoiled it and then the militarists took control in the twenties.
Does anyone really think NATO, led by the US, would intervene in places like Ukraine or Taiwan?
The period of American hegemony is over. Probably started with Obama, confirmed by Trump and Biden
Ukraine yes, as would NATO, Taiwan probably not.
Yes the US is no longer the supreme superpower but has to share that role with China.
However that does not mean the US has to kowtow to China and retreat from the world as Biden seems to be doing, following from Trump the last 2 US Presidents have been the most isolationist in the last 100 years.
That is a concern for the whole western world
You do know Russia already captured half of Ukraine without America sending a solitary gunboat?
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
I'm struggling with the logic here. The British had no say in the twenty year operation as they were just gofers for the Americans but did it to maintain our special relationship as America's 'Top Poodle' ......
........but those European countries 'shackled to the EU' who chose to have nothing to do with it should now clean up the mess?
Are you serious?
Most EU countries were involved in Afghanistan in some form or other and are you suggesting that on humanitarian grounds alone, the EU should turn its back on the dispossessed from Afghanistan
This is a bit "pot calling the kettle", the amount of refugees the UK takes from anywhere pales into insignificance compared to Europe/EU.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
Politicians do and so do you in some way. Say an international injustice occurs, from natural disasters to military ingression, what do you instinctively think the UK's reaction should be. That is your view of our status.
I must have missed the emergency parliamentary debate on Haiti. As for May's speech, why the hell should Britain be present on the streets of Kabul ?
The politicians bang on about global Britain but most people would much rather we took something along the lines of Ireland's view on foreign policy.
Was exactly my point. The politicians won't let go the idea that we are a great power or that we can and should "punch above our weight". Which latter strategy, of course, in recent years in Iraq and Afghan, has meant losing. Because that's what happens unless you have and commit the resources.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
I'm struggling with the logic here. The British had no say in the twenty year operation as they were just gofers for the Americans but did it to maintain our special relationship as America's 'Top Poodle' ......
........but those European countries 'shackled to the EU' who chose to have nothing to do with it should now clean up the mess?
Are you serious?
Most EU countries were involved in Afghanistan in some form or other and are you suggesting that on humanitarian grounds alone, the EU should turn its back on the dispossessed from Afghanistan
As the EU states have taken far more than we have, it is US who have turned our back.
Your anti-EU posturing looks a little desperate. You are like that fool Raaaaab yesterday saying "we've doubled it" when he has done nothing of the sort.
Does anyone really think NATO, led by the US, would intervene in places like Ukraine or Taiwan?
The period of American hegemony is over. Probably started with Obama, confirmed by Trump and Biden
Ukraine yes, as would NATO, Taiwan probably not.
Yes the US is no longer the supreme superpower but has to share that role with China.
However that does not mean the US has to kowtow to China and retreat from the world as Biden seems to be doing, following from Trump the last 2 US Presidents have been the most isolationist in the last 100 years.
That is a concern for the whole western world
You do know Russia already captured half of Ukraine without America sending a solitary gunboat?
They annexed the Crimea which is disputed territory with a large Russian population, if Putin threatened Kiev too that would be a different matter
An uncharacteristically petty and poor lead from CF who misses entirely the point that defending democracies from invasion is (i.e. would be) a very different matter from invading non-democracies.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
Be fair. Mr G has made his dislike of Ms Patel clear.
And yet gives her tacit support by deflecting away from our own shameful record to try and have a pop at an EU whose members have a much better record.
Surely elderly gentlemen like Mr G and myself are allowed our little foibles now and again?
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
The thing about a policeman is that they are there to protect you from the bad guys, but you in turn are protected from the police by the law. The resentment of the US role arises because of the absence of this second-level of protection.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
The US self-image is, or was, of protecting the rules-base order, but there's quite a lot of truth in this. The invasion of Iraq, for instance, sought the figleaf of a rules-based order via its British-based proxies trying to secure the cover of UN approval, but indeed was essentially vigilantism. That did quite a lot of damage in an era when people imagined some of the US's most cavalier developing-world approaches of the cold war were over.
Does anyone really think NATO, led by the US, would intervene in places like Ukraine or Taiwan?
The period of American hegemony is over. Probably started with Obama, confirmed by Trump and Biden
Ukraine yes, as would NATO, Taiwan probably not.
Yes the US is no longer the supreme superpower but has to share that role with China.
However that does not mean the US has to kowtow to China and retreat from the world as Biden seems to be doing, following from Trump the last 2 US Presidents have been the most isolationist in the last 100 years.
That is a concern for the whole western world
You do know Russia already captured half of Ukraine without America sending a solitary gunboat?
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
You clearly have not read that I am allowing my conservative party membership to lapse in October not least because I do not agree with Patel amongst others who I have said on many occasions has been an abject failure in her post as Home Secretary
And as far as UVDL and the EU states are concerned this crisis is now, the need is urgent, and we have committed to accepting Afghan refugees but there seems to be complete silence from the EU and individual member on the subject
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
The thing about a policeman is that they are there to protect you from the bad guys, but you in turn are protected from the police by the law. The resentment of the US role arises because of the absence of this second-level of protection.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
There is no such thing as "international law". The rules are made by the strong and that's what upset people about the US. If we want them to step up then they get to make the rules.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Does that mean that the HMS Queen Elizabeth would require permission from Buenos Aires to pass round Tierra Del Fuego?
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
The thing about a policeman is that they are there to protect you from the bad guys, but you in turn are protected from the police by the law. The resentment of the US role arises because of the absence of this second-level of protection.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
There is no such thing as "international law". The rules are made by the strong and that's what upset people about the US. If we want them to step up then they get to make the rules.
Britain was one of the victors that made many of the postwar rules, but it was already much weaker than the US when it made them. The discrepancy is only accounted for by its diplomatic and legal tradition.
Did we not once have a close relationship with Japan...... ancient, long lasting monarchies with significant hang-overs from feudalism and all that......, before first the USA rather spoiled it and then the militarists took control in the twenties.
The ending of the alliance with Japan was because such alliances were held to be one of the reasons that WWI happened - arguable, but the belief at the time.
The idea was to construct a New World order of a balance of power in naval terms. Without alliances, the US, UK, France, Italy and Japan couldn't defeat each other in the event of naval conflict, if they all held to the Washington Treaty.
As Yamamoto observed, the Washington Treaty gave Japan near absolute protection - it restrained the US from building a fleet that could crush Japan like a nut.
The belief that it was an Evul Wacist Treaty was the pitch of the Japanese Black Dragon types. This leaves out the fact that it
a) Gave Japan a bigger Navy than either France or Italy b) Gave Japan a bigger Navy than Japan could afford c) Limited everyone else to having a smaller presence in the Pacific than Japan.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
In the early 2000s, George Michael’s ‘Shoot The Dog’ & the ‘Team America World Police’ movie lampooned our relationship with the US & their role in the world. I, maybe mistakenly, thought they were reflective of how people wanted this to be acknowledged and changed
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
Politicians do and so do you in some way. Say an international injustice occurs, from natural disasters to military ingression, what do you instinctively think the UK's reaction should be. That is your view of our status.
I must have missed the emergency parliamentary debate on Haiti. As for May's speech, why the hell should Britain be present on the streets of Kabul ?
The politicians bang on about global Britain but most people would much rather we took something along the lines of Ireland's view on foreign policy.
I like Ireland and the Irish a lot. Family ties and everything. But Ireland is frankly a leach on its Western allies, with its race to the bottom corporation tax policy and its calculated stance of sheltering for free under NATO’s umbrella by proxy. Just what do you think would happen if the entire West adopted their mindset to foreign affairs?
Personally I think the society that has blossomed in the West since the Renaissance are something worth trying to protect from the jackboots in the East but each to their own I suppose.
How much is the US subsidising the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system? Trident is 100% dependent on the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Georgia. What if ‘America First’ means that they are no longer happy with puppet states holding the trigger on their (extraordinarily expensive) weapons system?
The UK made a strategic error when it abandoned its independent nuclear deterrent and became dependent on US goodwill. That goodwill was always going to run out some day.
How else could the UK deliver nuclear warheads?
- heavy bombers? - tank rounds? - mortar rounds? - drone? - Boris Bikes?
I'd be delighted if the US would rid us of Trident, but I suspect Britain would find a way. One option would be to work more closely with the French, with whom we already have a close bilateral defence relationship.
Given the scenario you posit would almost certainly involve the US leaving NATO, a much closer defence relationship with France in response would be inevitable. Doesn't seem like a stretch for that to include burden-sharing on a nuclear deterrent.
A more left-field option would be Japan. One could imagine that a scenario where the US stepped away from Europe would leave its Pacific allies nervous about the reliability of the US as a protector against China. Although Japan might be willing and able to develop a nuclear deterrent alone, they might find it easier politically to do so as part of a partnership with Britain.
Interestingly, Trident was an example of rather smart procurement, in terms of money.
LockMart had quoted a price per missile to the US Navy. With a reduction in price if X more were ordered.
When the UK order was added in, because it was for identical missiles to the US Navy buy (and part of a common "pool" or missiles), this triggered the price reduction for *all* missiles. So the UK got the price cut and the US Navy did as well.
Apparently some C suite types at LockMart were spitting blood over that for years...
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
I think we should be welcoming far more than 20,000 over 5 years and your response is a deflection
How many should we be taking?
I have seen various numbers - most seem to be calculated by saying that 20k isn't enough, rather than any factual basis...
How many Afghans (and their dependents) are in the various risk categories as a result of association with the UK?
This is a fair question and of course this returns to my point about the EU and just how many refugees they will accept as part of a resettlement programme following this debacle
We cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and of course there is a question of screening out those who would harm us
This is not a simple problem but I did hear Boris say that the numbers to be accepted will be under constant review and I expect more than 5,000 this year will be allowed in
It's 10K this year - the interpreters etc plus families are an additional 5K.
Yes actually I understand that and again Boris just did not make that clear enough
The point is that we need to be flexible on numbers but we cannot do it on our own and I am surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be, at the way the pro EU posters on here try to excuse the fact that no serious discussions have taken place in the EU over sharing the urgent need to address this problem
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Does that mean that the HMS Queen Elizabeth would require permission from Buenos Aires to pass round Tierra Del Fuego?
No but it means it may need a substantial naval port in the vicinity in case of suboptimal weather in the Drake Passage.
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
The thing about a policeman is that they are there to protect you from the bad guys, but you in turn are protected from the police by the law. The resentment of the US role arises because of the absence of this second-level of protection.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
There is no such thing as "international law". The rules are made by the strong and that's what upset people about the US. If we want them to step up then they get to make the rules.
There are quite alot of lawyers specialising in International Law who would take issue with that statement.
Ultimately all laws are "rules made by the strong"
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
You clearly have not read that I am allowing my conservative party membership to lapse in October not least because I do not agree with Patel amongst others who I have said on many occasions has been an abject failure in her post as Home Secretary
And as far as UVDL and the EU states are concerned this crisis is now, the need is urgent, and we have committed to accepting Afghan refugees but there seems to be complete silence from the EU and individual member on the subject
Good news about your Tory membership.
As for EU member state announcements, do they need to announce something they are already doing? I get that we need to say "we're going to take refugees" because right now we aren't on anything like the scale of say Germany.
What makes me despair is the "we'll take refugees later" from Patel. No, we won't. They'll all be dead or in the clutches of the Taliban. And if they manage to escape they will be met with "eugh you have to claim asylum in the first safe country" lie or "build a wave machine to sink the boats"
How much is the US subsidising the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system? Trident is 100% dependent on the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Georgia. What if ‘America First’ means that they are no longer happy with puppet states holding the trigger on their (extraordinarily expensive) weapons system?
The UK made a strategic error when it abandoned its independent nuclear deterrent and became dependent on US goodwill. That goodwill was always going to run out some day.
How else could the UK deliver nuclear warheads?
- heavy bombers? - tank rounds? - mortar rounds? - drone? - Boris Bikes?
I'd be delighted if the US would rid us of Trident, but I suspect Britain would find a way. One option would be to work more closely with the French, with whom we already have a close bilateral defence relationship.
Given the scenario you posit would almost certainly involve the US leaving NATO, a much closer defence relationship with France in response would be inevitable. Doesn't seem like a stretch for that to include burden-sharing on a nuclear deterrent.
A more left-field option would be Japan. One could imagine that a scenario where the US stepped away from Europe would leave its Pacific allies nervous about the reliability of the US as a protector against China. Although Japan might be willing and able to develop a nuclear deterrent alone, they might find it easier politically to do so as part of a partnership with Britain.
Interestingly, Trident was an example of rather smart procurement, in terms of money.
LockMart had quoted a price per missile to the US Navy. With a reduction in price if X more were ordered.
When the UK order was added in, because it was for identical missiles to the US Navy buy (and part of a common "pool" or missiles), this triggered the price reduction for *all* missiles. So the UK got the price cut and the US Navy did as well.
Apparently some C suite types at LockMart were spitting blood over that for years...
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
I think we should be welcoming far more than 20,000 over 5 years and your response is a deflection
How many should we be taking?
I have seen various numbers - most seem to be calculated by saying that 20k isn't enough, rather than any factual basis...
How many Afghans (and their dependents) are in the various risk categories as a result of association with the UK?
This is a fair question and of course this returns to my point about the EU and just how many refugees they will accept as part of a resettlement programme following this debacle
We cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and of course there is a question of screening out those who would harm us
This is not a simple problem but I did hear Boris say that the numbers to be accepted will be under constant review and I expect more than 5,000 this year will be allowed in
It's 10K this year - the interpreters etc plus families are an additional 5K.
Yes actually I understand that and again Boris just did not make that clear enough
The point is that we need to be flexible on numbers but we cannot do it on our own and I am surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be, at the way the pro EU posters on here try to excuse the fact that no serious discussions have taken place in the EU over sharing the urgent need to address this problem
For a start, I would like to know how many interpreters etc (plus families) each country was involved with in Afghanistan.
I cannot find even vague estimates of this online - anyone?
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
It is muddled. People don't particularly care about status, true.
But, when the ugliness of the world intrudes on TV or smartphones -- say, a particularly bloodthirsty massacre, an exceptionally barbaric set of killings, a truly vicious regime takes power -- people want our politicians "to do something".
This is especially the case of the British middle-classes.
They have a Manichean view of the world as the fight between "good" and "evil". Where there is "evil", they want it fought. Blair is probably the finest example of this, in recent times.
Of course, they don't want to commit their own sons and daughters to do the fighting & dying in the desert, and they don't want to pay any increased taxes for military spending.
The British middle classes want "evil" defeated, but by others. By Americans, normally. Or the sons and daughters of the poor.
So, people don't care about status, but they don't want to see barbarism on the news bulletins.
Safe? Of course he is safe! He fucked off on holiday having been told the Taliban were going to sweep Afghanistan and then refused to make a phone call to save lives or other calls to co-ordinate efforts.
Lazy. Pig-ignorant. Indifferent to duty. He will go a long way in Johnson's government.
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
The thing about a policeman is that they are there to protect you from the bad guys, but you in turn are protected from the police by the law. The resentment of the US role arises because of the absence of this second-level of protection.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
For that to happen we would need a serious level of world government on top of international governments, which wont happen this century, if ever. (The UN and the international law frameworks are not this).
So the rest of the world and the US itself need to decide what role it should play, a maverick sheriff trying to do what it can without a solid legal framework, or just another self-interested international big power defending its interests.
If the world is best served by the sheriff role then we need to understand the limitations of what can be done and that the US will still often get it wrong, and that even "wins" are messy and can have negative consequences down the line.
If we dont want them to do that role then we need to understand that it is not their responsibility to defend small nations from regional aggressors (it will sometimes be in their interests to do so, but it should not be generally expected).
Obviously it is fine for different people to have opposing views on which role the US should play, neither is clearly better than the other imo. My issue is with those who take the common view that the US should police the world, guarantee security of countries half way across the world, never make mistakes and are then to be blamed for being aggressors or not understanding and respecting local differences.
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
Be fair. Mr G has made his dislike of Ms Patel clear.
And yet gives her tacit support by deflecting away from our own shameful record to try and have a pop at an EU whose members have a much better record.
The EU had no choice on the numbers de to Merkle's controversial open door policy
I give no support to Patel but at the same time even you have to accept we cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and sharing across the EU in this crisis is essential
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
It is muddled. People don't particularly care about status, true.
But, when the ugliness of the world intrudes on TV or smartphones -- say, a particularly bloodthirsty massacre, an exceptionally barbaric set of killings, a truly vicious regime takes power -- people want our politicians "to do something".
This is especially the case of the British middle-classes.
They have a Manichean view of the world as the fight between "good" and "evil". Where there is "evil", they want it fought. Blair is probably the finest example of this, in recent times.
Of course, they don't want to commit their own sons and daughters to do the fighting & dying in the desert, and they don't want to pay any increased taxes for military spending.
The British middle classes want "evil" defeated, but by others. By Americans, normally.
So, people don't care about status, but they don't want to see barbarism on the news bulletins.
This is why I think the headlines and newspaper hand-wringing about this are good news for the Tories. I appreciate that Labour likes to disown it's previous government, but they took us in and I doubt that's lost on most people.
Isn't there a bit of a contradiction if the same people say "we've got to get out of the EU because it's a superstate" who then say "the EU should be doing more in Afghanistan"?
The EU is doing nothing in Afghanistan because it isn't a superstate.
Fair enough to point out the difficulties the EU has of having any consistent kind of "foreign policy", and to have a pop at EU pretensions that do have one. But can you both criticise the EU for becoming too much like a superstate, and then demand that they behave much more like one? Seems a bit dodgy to me.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence.
Unfortunately it's going to take a few more harsh lessons before the tories come to terms with these realities.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
The UK currently has no idea of what its position in the world is. It has no coherent foreign policy.
Policy, such as it is, seems to be, let's do more with Australia, maybe something with Japan, even more maybe with India, let's join CPTPP because it's big and far away. By the way Russia is bad and China is also bad but we want to do business with it.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
America was not a reliable friend even pre-Trump. Remember that at the height of the Special Relationship, President Reagan invaded Grenada without a word to Mrs Thatcher, and even in the Second World War, the United States effectively cut out Churchill from post-war planning between the USA and USSR. It was a friend, no doubt, but a hard-headed one.
Yet it was US troops in western Europe which were key to preventing the USSR from invading, as well as UK and French nuclear weapons which the US assisted with
Yes. All this stuff about the US being unreliable so we are on our own and so on needs a lot of thought.
No country except a superpower can be defended alone. You rely either on luck, neutrality (which is luck+ hoping that your non neutral friends are actually going to help) or alliances. Ours is NATO. There is no other in sight. This has worked so far, along with such nuclear deterrent as we possess. It has worked, so far, for every NATO member.
Germany (for example) or Poland would not survive attack for long without both allies and the threat of nuclear support. Ditto the Baltic states.
The question which is around and growing, what with Ukraine, Afghanistan, the Baltic states and so on is: Will someone have a go and test out the reality of NATO solidarity, and if so when, and what will the response be?
Other questions are (for the UK) comparatively trivial.
I give no support to Patel but at the same time even you have to accept we cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and sharing across the EU in this crisis is essential
The EU were bit players at best and haven't been involved significantly for 10 years. This isn't their problem.
Remember, Brexit means you can't blame the EU any longer.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Does that mean that the HMS Queen Elizabeth would require permission from Buenos Aires to pass round Tierra Del Fuego?
No but it means it may need a substantial naval port in the vicinity in case of suboptimal weather in the Drake Passage.
Chile was an ally of the UK in the Falklands War, so we would just go to Santiago
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
You clearly have not read that I am allowing my conservative party membership to lapse in October not least because I do not agree with Patel amongst others who I have said on many occasions has been an abject failure in her post as Home Secretary
And as far as UVDL and the EU states are concerned this crisis is now, the need is urgent, and we have committed to accepting Afghan refugees but there seems to be complete silence from the EU and individual member on the subject
Good news about your Tory membership.
As for EU member state announcements, do they need to announce something they are already doing? I get that we need to say "we're going to take refugees" because right now we aren't on anything like the scale of say Germany.
What makes me despair is the "we'll take refugees later" from Patel. No, we won't. They'll all be dead or in the clutches of the Taliban. And if they manage to escape they will be met with "eugh you have to claim asylum in the first safe country" lie or "build a wave machine to sink the boats"
I think there is a great danger here that you are conflating two issues, both of which are serious and grave, but that have different solutions
Those in Afghanistan seeking safety should be welcomed very much so by the UK, but also other states across Europe many of whom were involved in Afghanistan
Stopping migrants crossing, and in some cases dying, in the the English channel is a separate issue and in that Patel has comprehensively failed
Did we not once have a close relationship with Japan...... ancient, long lasting monarchies with significant hang-overs from feudalism and all that......, before first the USA rather spoiled it and then the militarists took control in the twenties.
The ending of the alliance with Japan was because such alliances were held to be one of the reasons that WWI happened - arguable, but the belief at the time.
The idea was to construct a New World order of a balance of power in naval terms. Without alliances, the US, UK, France, Italy and Japan couldn't defeat each other in the event of naval conflict, if they all held to the Washington Treaty.
As Yamamoto observed, the Washington Treaty gave Japan near absolute protection - it restrained the US from building a fleet that could crush Japan like a nut.
The belief that it was an Evul Wacist Treaty was the pitch of the Japanese Black Dragon types. This leaves out the fact that it
a) Gave Japan a bigger Navy than either France or Italy b) Gave Japan a bigger Navy than Japan could afford c) Limited everyone else to having a smaller presence in the Pacific than Japan.
Not as good, in terms of sorting everything out, as the Treaty of Vienna, then.
I sometimes wish I'd done History instead of Pharmacy!
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
It is muddled. People don't particularly care about status, true.
But, when the ugliness of the world intrudes on TV or smartphones -- say, a particularly bloodthirsty massacre, an exceptionally barbaric set of killings, a truly vicious regime takes power -- people want our politicians "to do something".
This is especially the case of the British middle-classes.
They have a Manichean view of the world as the fight between "good" and "evil". Where there is "evil", they want it fought. Blair is probably the finest example of this, in recent times.
Of course, they don't want to commit their own sons and daughters to do the fighting & dying in the desert, and they don't want to pay any increased taxes for military spending.
The British middle classes want "evil" defeated, but by others. By Americans, normally. Or the sons and daughters of the poor.
So, people don't care about status, but they don't want to see barbarism on the news bulletins.
I certainly think Blair was guilty of this. As people have mentioned elsewhere recently, the British political and media classes have studiously ignored the fact that Hashim Thaci, President of Kosovo for many years, Blair's personal friend, and leader of the KLA side during the conflict, is now standing trial for torture and murder of Roma, Albanians and Serbs in The Hague.
How much is the US subsidising the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system? Trident is 100% dependent on the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Georgia. What if ‘America First’ means that they are no longer happy with puppet states holding the trigger on their (extraordinarily expensive) weapons system?
The UK made a strategic error when it abandoned its independent nuclear deterrent and became dependent on US goodwill. That goodwill was always going to run out some day.
How else could the UK deliver nuclear warheads?
- heavy bombers? - tank rounds? - mortar rounds? - drone? - Boris Bikes?
I'd be delighted if the US would rid us of Trident, but I suspect Britain would find a way. One option would be to work more closely with the French, with whom we already have a close bilateral defence relationship.
Given the scenario you posit would almost certainly involve the US leaving NATO, a much closer defence relationship with France in response would be inevitable. Doesn't seem like a stretch for that to include burden-sharing on a nuclear deterrent.
A more left-field option would be Japan. One could imagine that a scenario where the US stepped away from Europe would leave its Pacific allies nervous about the reliability of the US as a protector against China. Although Japan might be willing and able to develop a nuclear deterrent alone, they might find it easier politically to do so as part of a partnership with Britain.
Interestingly, Trident was an example of rather smart procurement, in terms of money.
LockMart had quoted a price per missile to the US Navy. With a reduction in price if X more were ordered.
When the UK order was added in, because it was for identical missiles to the US Navy buy (and part of a common "pool" or missiles), this triggered the price reduction for *all* missiles. So the UK got the price cut and the US Navy did as well.
Apparently some C suite types at LockMart were spitting blood over that for years...
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
I think we should be welcoming far more than 20,000 over 5 years and your response is a deflection
How many should we be taking?
I have seen various numbers - most seem to be calculated by saying that 20k isn't enough, rather than any factual basis...
How many Afghans (and their dependents) are in the various risk categories as a result of association with the UK?
This is a fair question and of course this returns to my point about the EU and just how many refugees they will accept as part of a resettlement programme following this debacle
We cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and of course there is a question of screening out those who would harm us
This is not a simple problem but I did hear Boris say that the numbers to be accepted will be under constant review and I expect more than 5,000 this year will be allowed in
It's 10K this year - the interpreters etc plus families are an additional 5K.
Yes actually I understand that and again Boris just did not make that clear enough
The point is that we need to be flexible on numbers but we cannot do it on our own and I am surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be, at the way the pro EU posters on here try to excuse the fact that no serious discussions have taken place in the EU over sharing the urgent need to address this problem
For a start, I would like to know how many interpreters etc (plus families) each country was involved with in Afghanistan.
I cannot find even vague estimates of this online - anyone?
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Does that mean that the HMS Queen Elizabeth would require permission from Buenos Aires to pass round Tierra Del Fuego?
No but it means it may need a substantial naval port in the vicinity in case of suboptimal weather in the Drake Passage.
Chile was an ally of the UK in the Falklands War, so we would just go to Santiago
Santiago is 30 miles inland and a convenient 1,600 miles by sea from the Drake Passage. 👍
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
Politicians do and so do you in some way. Say an international injustice occurs, from natural disasters to military ingression, what do you instinctively think the UK's reaction should be. That is your view of our status.
I must have missed the emergency parliamentary debate on Haiti. As for May's speech, why the hell should Britain be present on the streets of Kabul ?
The politicians bang on about global Britain but most people would much rather we took something along the lines of Ireland's view on foreign policy.
I like Ireland and the Irish a lot. Family ties and everything. But Ireland is frankly a leach on its Western allies, with its race to the bottom corporation tax policy and its calculated stance of sheltering for free under NATO’s umbrella by proxy. Just what do you think would happen if the entire West adopted their mindset to foreign affairs?
Personally I think the society that has blossomed in the West since the Renaissance are something worth trying to protect from the jackboots in the East but each to their own I suppose.
The current global hotspots are hardly stuffed full of Rubins and Caravaggios. Afghanistan, the Yemen, Ethiopia, the DR Congo, the Maghreb, Sudan all need to sort themselves out without our interference if they're to be stable in the long term.
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence. accepting that we therefore have to look to our own capabilities, however restricted these might be. Accepting that we have to operate within those restrictions. Accepting that what we think is of very little importance to anyone else and vice versa. Focus on our real interests, act rarely but make sure when we do it is within our capabilities.
The overriding imperative is for the UK to agree and be comfortable with exactly what its place in the world is.
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Which is odd, because I don't think most people in this country particularly care about our status in the world.
It is muddled. People don't particularly care about status, true.
But, when the ugliness of the world intrudes on TV or smartphones -- say, a particularly bloodthirsty massacre, an exceptionally barbaric set of killings, a truly vicious regime takes power -- people want our politicians "to do something".
This is especially the case of the British middle-classes.
They have a Manichean view of the world as the fight between "good" and "evil". Where there is "evil", they want it fought. Blair is probably the finest example of this, in recent times.
Of course, they don't want to commit their own sons and daughters to do the fighting & dying in the desert, and they don't want to pay any increased taxes for military spending.
The British middle classes want "evil" defeated, but by others. By Americans, normally. Or the sons and daughters of the poor.
So, people don't care about status, but they don't want to see barbarism on the news bulletins.
Of course, they don't want to commit their own sons and daughters to do the fighting & dying in the desert, and they don't want to pay any increased taxes for military spending.
Nor do they want any refugees intruding on their own middle class safe haven - it might affect house prices if nothing else.
A council estate up north will do for the refugees.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Does that mean that the HMS Queen Elizabeth would require permission from Buenos Aires to pass round Tierra Del Fuego?
No but it means it may need a substantial naval port in the vicinity in case of suboptimal weather in the Drake Passage.
Chile was an ally of the UK in the Falklands War, so we would just go to Santiago
Depends, of course, on which side of the Drake Passage the ship starts. If it's in the Pacific, fine; if not about the nearest friendly port is Port Stanley and, I stand to be corrected, I don't THINK that's really suitable.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Does that mean that the HMS Queen Elizabeth would require permission from Buenos Aires to pass round Tierra Del Fuego?
No but it means it may need a substantial naval port in the vicinity in case of suboptimal weather in the Drake Passage.
Chile was an ally of the UK in the Falklands War, so we would just go to Santiago
Santiago that's c.3000km up from the Horn and 50km inland? Lol.
Astonishing that people still support going back in
There will always be people who believe we should intervene
As I have previously said if any future terrorist attack on a Western nation comes from Afghanistan expect a swift response from distance by air, without actual boots on the ground
Isn't there a bit of a contradiction if the same people say "we've got to get out of the EU because it's a superstate" who then say "the EU should be doing more in Afghanistan"?
The EU is doing nothing in Afghanistan because it isn't a superstate.
Fair enough to point out the difficulties the EU has of having any consistent kind of "foreign policy", and to have a pop at EU pretensions that do have one. But can you both criticise the EU for becoming too much like a superstate, and then demand that they behave much more like one? Seems a bit dodgy to me.
No one is saying the EU should do more in Afghanistan.
They are saying that either the EU, or possibly just individual EU countries, should do more to help Afghanistan refugees fleeing the Taliban. This is in no way contradictory with believing the EU should act less like a superstate - in part because it's a domestic policy issue, not a foreign policy issue.
The US position on the Falklands wasn't clear-cut, either. Certainly not at first.
The US had to strike a very delicate balance over the Falklands as Argentina are a key strategic partner on whose goodwill they rely when moving carriers between the Atlantic and Pacific. (CVNs won't fit through the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal.)
Does that mean that the HMS Queen Elizabeth would require permission from Buenos Aires to pass round Tierra Del Fuego?
No but it means it may need a substantial naval port in the vicinity in case of suboptimal weather in the Drake Passage.
Chile was an ally of the UK in the Falklands War, so we would just go to Santiago
Depends, of course, on which side of the Drake Passage the ship starts. If it's in the Pacific, fine; if not about the nearest friendly port is Port Stanley and, I stand to be corrected, but I don't THINK that's really suitable.
It's irrelevant anyway as the UK would never risk a carrier around Cape Horn. They are bringing HMS QE back the long way from the Western Pacific rather than do that.
This is a curious thread. It seems much of the West wants simultaneously the US to be the worlds sole policeman but also resents it playing that role. No wonder the US pivots between playing it and stepping back every other generation.
The thing about a policeman is that they are there to protect you from the bad guys, but you in turn are protected from the police by the law. The resentment of the US role arises because of the absence of this second-level of protection.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
There is no such thing as "international law". The rules are made by the strong and that's what upset people about the US. If we want them to step up then they get to make the rules.
There are quite alot of lawyers specialising in International Law who would take issue with that statement.
Ultimately all laws are "rules made by the strong"
What I hope comes out of this debacle is greater realism on the part of the UK government. That means: Accepting that the US is no longer the reliable friend it was pre Trump. Accepting that as a result NATO is a busted flush and can no longer be the central strand of our defence.
Unfortunately it's going to take a few more harsh lessons before the tories come to terms with these realities.
Big G resigning every year should do the trick.
You may just have little more respect for a decision I have not taken lightly
Ben Wallace on R4 stoutly defends Raab - "a phone call on Friday would not have made a blind bit of difference".
Well that clears that up.
Raab clearly was wrong, but also Biden was on holiday and took days to appear, and just as a matter of interest UVDL seems to have disappeared altogether.
Has anyone heard from the EU who I understand now have a problem of refugees crossing into the EU from Belarus
As the EU does not have any skin in the game in Afghanistan what specifically do you think she failed to do?
One of the biggest security crisis in the world and you try to excuse the EU from any responsibility takes the biscuit
How many EU members were involved in Afghanistan by the way and more importantly just how many EU countries are going to accept refugees, how is the commission going to organise that, and how are they going to deal with the mass arrival of Afghans at their borders
Lol - the EU member states who were involved in Afghanistan were involved as NATO members, not as EU members. Same as us. The EU is not in Afghanistan. Are you saying that prior to Brexit the UK PM/Defence secretary should have deferred to the EU commission with regards to our military?
Laughable. I know you want to try and find a pro-Brexit angle, but really. As for refugees, check the number taken by non-UK EU states, then how many we have. For all that we have this "crisis" of migration we take far less than France or Germany. As you well know.
How many Afghan refugees from this crisis has each member state of the EU declared they will accept
You could start with France
The "which European country is doing the least for Afghan refugees?" argument appears to another Brexit proxy-war promoted by people who mostly think we shouldn't be doing anything much for Afghan refugees anyway.
Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but..
And yet Big_G and his ilk seem utterly convinced that the UK is awash with refugees unlike anywhere else. In reality the reverse is true. THIS is the real hostile environment.
I think nothing of the sort nor can you point to any post that I have made that would give that impression
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
I'm grateful for your clarification. Another curious policy area where your full support for the government is directly contradicted by their policies.
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
Be fair. Mr G has made his dislike of Ms Patel clear.
And yet gives her tacit support by deflecting away from our own shameful record to try and have a pop at an EU whose members have a much better record.
The EU had no choice on the numbers de to Merkle's controversial open door policy
I give no support to Patel but at the same time even you have to accept we cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and sharing across the EU in this crisis is essential
100% true. And yet the government whose Brexit policy you still support has exited the Dublin accords which rips up our ability to co-ordinate with our neighbours...
Comments
My bungalow, bought 20+ years ago, admittedly rather cheaply, is now worth, according to Rightmove's website, slightly less than twice what we paid for it. We've made a few improvements, but nothing whatsoever to justify that!
And residential property stamp duty in a normal year raises over £15bn, so you need to rework your numbers.
I have seen various numbers - most seem to be calculated by saying that 20k isn't enough, rather than any factual basis...
How many Afghans (and their dependents) are in the various risk categories as a result of association with the UK?
The period of American hegemony is over. Probably started with Obama, confirmed by Trump and Biden
I support the UK accepting Afghan refugees and in bigger numbers than stated
I do not support them losing their lives in the English channel at the behest of people smugglers
That I don't think can happen because successive governments are unwilling to admit to our post-colonial, post-great power status.
Raab to remain in post on September 1st.
https://smarkets.com/event/42339915/politics/uk/cabinet/dominic-raab-to-remain-foreign-secretary
I've taken the 1.17 available on "Yes", he only needs to survive 13 days. Given Williamson is still Ed Sec I don't think Raab is very likely to be fired at all in the next fortnight.
Given the scenario you posit would almost certainly involve the US leaving NATO, a much closer defence relationship with France in response would be inevitable. Doesn't seem like a stretch for that to include burden-sharing on a nuclear deterrent.
A more left-field option would be Japan. One could imagine that a scenario where the US stepped away from Europe would leave its Pacific allies nervous about the reliability of the US as a protector against China. Although Japan might be willing and able to develop a nuclear deterrent alone, they might find it easier politically to do so as part of a partnership with Britain.
........but those European countries 'shackled to the EU' who chose to have nothing to do with it should now clean up the mess?
Are you serious?
IIRC, though, at the end of WWII, although part of Japan, it was by-passed in favour of an attack on Japan itself, which might suggest that the terrain isn't one which is easily taken over, although, of course at the time the Japanese Navy wasn't in any position to defend the Homeland.
We need it to protect against Russia just as Japan needs one to protect against China
By the way the idea above that it doesn’t matter if China takes Taiwan, who cares we’ll just trade with them anyway. What happens when Xi decides, “do you know what? From now on I’ll keep these semiconductors for myself thanks.”
It is misunderstood by so many that almost everything the CCP does is seen by them first and foremost through the prism of its military, and secondly its strategy for domination for the Hans (technological, economic, military, even cultural). It is a racially based ideology, with a very long memory and is very patient indeed.
Why do you think they are so fussed about tying up ownership of copper mines everywhere in the world? They’re used in bullets. I don’t expect it will be long before they start mining Afghan neodymium either.
Where are Spain, Italy, Australia, Japan ?
We cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and of course there is a question of screening out those who would harm us
This is not a simple problem but I did hear Boris say that the numbers to be accepted will be under constant review and I expect more than 5,000 this year will be allowed in
Yes the US is no longer the supreme superpower but has to share that role with China.
However that does not mean the US has to kowtow to China and retreat from the world as Biden seems to be doing, following from Trump the last 2 US Presidents have been the most isolationist in the last 100 years.
That is a concern for the whole western world
To go back to your anti-EU posturing, as the stats show we take significantly fewer refugees than the big EU countries. So the target of your ire should not be von der Leyen - whose member states take in far more than we do. It should be that smirking monster Patel. And yet it is not...
I think people care, but they are more realistic than thought. The number of people who assume the public (particularly the Brexity element) think or desire we be a superpower and thus be 'surprised' or upset we are not is I think far higher than the actual number.
We see it all the time, possibility as the WW2 nostalgic do it alone types are noisy - but tell most people we are a significant but not great power and I think they doby mind that.
The politicians bang on about global Britain but most people would much rather we took something along the lines of Ireland's view on foreign policy.
LockMart had quoted a price per missile to the US Navy. With a reduction in price if X more were ordered.
When the UK order was added in, because it was for identical missiles to the US Navy buy (and part of a common "pool" or missiles), this triggered the price reduction for *all* missiles. So the UK got the price cut and the US Navy did as well.
Apparently some C suite types at LockMart were spitting blood over that for years... It's 10K this year - the interpreters etc plus families are an additional 5K.
It means the US has not so much played the role of a policeman, but of a vigilante, and so necessarily the relationship is more complex.
While the NSA was sending us real time decrypts of the Argentinian communications.
Your anti-EU posturing looks a little desperate. You are like that fool Raaaaab yesterday saying "we've doubled it" when he has done nothing of the sort.
“There has been a bit of niggle but we’re not talking Hancock-eque by any stretch of the imagination.”
https://twitter.com/e_casalicchio/status/1428281105363447812
And as far as UVDL and the EU states are concerned this crisis is now, the need is urgent, and we have committed to accepting Afghan refugees but there seems to be complete silence from the EU and individual member on the subject
The idea was to construct a New World order of a balance of power in naval terms. Without alliances, the US, UK, France, Italy and Japan couldn't defeat each other in the event of naval conflict, if they all held to the Washington Treaty.
As Yamamoto observed, the Washington Treaty gave Japan near absolute protection - it restrained the US from building a fleet that could crush Japan like a nut.
The belief that it was an Evul Wacist Treaty was the pitch of the Japanese Black Dragon types. This leaves out the fact that it
a) Gave Japan a bigger Navy than either France or Italy
b) Gave Japan a bigger Navy than Japan could afford
c) Limited everyone else to having a smaller presence in the Pacific than Japan.
Personally I think the society that has blossomed in the West since the Renaissance are something worth trying to protect from the jackboots in the East but each to their own I suppose.
The point is that we need to be flexible on numbers but we cannot do it on our own and I am surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be, at the way the pro EU posters on here try to excuse the fact that no serious discussions have taken place in the EU over sharing the urgent need to address this problem
https://twitter.com/clarkemicah/status/1427992394830696448?s=21
Ultimately all laws are "rules made by the strong"
As for EU member state announcements, do they need to announce something they are already doing? I get that we need to say "we're going to take refugees" because right now we aren't on anything like the scale of say Germany.
What makes me despair is the "we'll take refugees later" from Patel. No, we won't. They'll all be dead or in the clutches of the Taliban. And if they manage to escape they will be met with "eugh you have to claim asylum in the first safe country" lie or "build a wave machine to sink the boats"
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/18/afghanistan-media-taliban-future-505948
I cannot find even vague estimates of this online - anyone?
Astonishing that people still support going back in
But, when the ugliness of the world intrudes on TV or smartphones -- say, a particularly bloodthirsty massacre, an exceptionally barbaric set of killings, a truly vicious regime takes power -- people want our politicians "to do something".
This is especially the case of the British middle-classes.
They have a Manichean view of the world as the fight between "good" and "evil". Where there is "evil", they want it fought. Blair is probably the finest example of this, in recent times.
Of course, they don't want to commit their own sons and daughters to do the fighting & dying in the desert, and they don't want to pay any increased taxes for military spending.
The British middle classes want "evil" defeated, but by others. By Americans, normally. Or the sons and daughters of the poor.
So, people don't care about status, but they don't want to see barbarism on the news bulletins.
Lazy. Pig-ignorant. Indifferent to duty. He will go a long way in Johnson's government.
So the rest of the world and the US itself need to decide what role it should play, a maverick sheriff trying to do what it can without a solid legal framework, or just another self-interested international big power defending its interests.
If the world is best served by the sheriff role then we need to understand the limitations of what can be done and that the US will still often get it wrong, and that even "wins" are messy and can have negative consequences down the line.
If we dont want them to do that role then we need to understand that it is not their responsibility to defend small nations from regional aggressors (it will sometimes be in their interests to do so, but it should not be generally expected).
Obviously it is fine for different people to have opposing views on which role the US should play, neither is clearly better than the other imo. My issue is with those who take the common view that the US should police the world, guarantee security of countries half way across the world, never make mistakes and are then to be blamed for being aggressors or not understanding and respecting local differences.
I give no support to Patel but at the same time even you have to accept we cannot accommodate unlimited numbers and sharing across the EU in this crisis is essential
who then say "the EU should be doing more in Afghanistan"?
The EU is doing nothing in Afghanistan because it isn't a superstate.
Fair enough to point out the difficulties the EU has of having any consistent kind of "foreign policy", and to have a pop at EU pretensions that do have one. But can you both criticise the EU for becoming too much like a superstate, and then demand that they behave much more like one? Seems a bit dodgy to me.
Policy, such as it is, seems to be, let's do more with Australia, maybe something with Japan, even more maybe with India, let's join CPTPP because it's big and far away. By the way Russia is bad and China is also bad but we want to do business with it.
No country except a superpower can be defended alone. You rely either on luck, neutrality (which is luck+ hoping that your non neutral friends are actually going to help) or alliances. Ours is NATO. There is no other in sight. This has worked so far, along with such nuclear deterrent as we possess. It has worked, so far, for every NATO member.
Germany (for example) or Poland would not survive attack for long without both allies and the threat of nuclear support. Ditto the Baltic states.
The question which is around and growing, what with Ukraine, Afghanistan, the Baltic states and so on is: Will someone have a go and test out the reality of NATO solidarity, and if so when, and what will the response be?
Other questions are (for the UK) comparatively trivial.
Remember, Brexit means you can't blame the EU any longer.
Those in Afghanistan seeking safety should be welcomed very much so by the UK, but also other states across Europe many of whom were involved in Afghanistan
Stopping migrants crossing, and in some cases dying, in the the English channel is a separate issue and in that Patel has comprehensively failed
I sometimes wish I'd done History instead of Pharmacy!
https://twitter.com/timfarron/status/1428286010392252419?s=20
Nor do they want any refugees intruding on their own middle class safe haven - it might affect house prices if nothing else.
A council estate up north will do for the refugees.
Edit. Dura Ace's post noted.
Edit: the pro beat me to it
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1428265671687868420?s=20
As I have previously said if any future terrorist attack on a Western nation comes from Afghanistan expect a swift response from distance by air, without actual boots on the ground
They are saying that either the EU, or possibly just individual EU countries, should do more to help Afghanistan refugees fleeing the Taliban. This is in no way contradictory with believing the EU should act less like a superstate - in part because it's a domestic policy issue, not a foreign policy issue.
Lisa Nandy MP, Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary, is on @SkyNews in a minute, calling for him to be sacked for “catastrophic failure of judgement”
https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1428287771660140545
So don't whine when it actually happens.