British Foreign Policy under New Labour

British Foreign Policy under New Labour, 1997–2005 Paul D. Williams British Foreign Policy under New Labour, 1997–2005...

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British Foreign Policy under New Labour, 1997–2005 Paul D. Williams

British Foreign Policy under New Labour, 1997–2005

Also by Paul D. Williams UNDERSTANDING PEACEKEEPING (co-author with A.J. Bellamy and S. Griffin) AFRICA IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: External Involvement on the Continent (co-edited with I. Taylor) PEACE OPERATIONS AND GLOBAL ORDER (co-edited with A.J. Bellamy)

British Foreign Policy under New Labour, 1997–2005

Paul D. Williams Senior Lecturer in Security Studies University of Birmingham, UK

© Paul D. Williams 2005 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–1321–0 hardback ISBN-10: 1–4039–1321–8 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Williams, Paul, 1975– British foreign policy under New Labour, 1997–2005 / Paul D. Williams. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–1321–8 1. Great Britain—Foreign relations––1979–1997. 2. Labour Party (Great Britain) I. Title. DA589.8.W55 2005 327.41⬘009⬘049—dc22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

2005051389

To my parents, Carole and David Williams

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Contents List of Tables

viii

List of Abbreviations

ix

Acknowledgements

xii

Introduction

1

Part I

Commitments

1 Understanding Labour’s Foreign Policy

Part II

Relationships

13 15

33

2 The Closest Ally

35

3 Living in (and with) Europe

56

4 Healing a Scar on the World’s Conscience?

75

Part III

Issues

5 Navigating in the Global Economy

97 99

6 Defending the Realm … and the Defence Industry

120

7 The Right (and Prudent) Thing To Do

141

8 Other People’s Wars

164

9 Iraq and Labour’s Moment in the Middle East

185

Conclusions

207

Notes

213

Index

253

vii

List of Tables 4.1 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2

UK trade relations with Sub-Saharan Africa Discourses of globalisation UK Government’s appeal to globalisation since 1997 Strategic effects of UK military operations UK arms exports and global market share, 1997–2003

viii

89 107 107 126 136

List of Abbreviations ABM ACTSA AMIB ANC BMATT BTI CBBC CDC CFSP CJTF CPA DDR DESO DFID DRC DTI ECOMOG ECOWAS ESDI ESDP ETA EU EUPM FAC FCO FDI G-7 G-8 GCHQ GNI HIPC ICC ICISS ICJ IDP

Anti-Ballistic Missile Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 African Union Mission in Burundi African National Congress (South Africa) British Military Advisory and Training Team British Trade International China-Britain Business Council Commonwealth Development Corporation EU Common Foreign and Security Policy NATO’s Combined Joint Task Forces Coalition Provisional Authority (Iraq) Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Defence Export Services Organisation Department for International Development Democratic Republic of Congo Department for Trade and Industry ECOWAS Monitoring Group Economic Community of West African States NATO’s European Security and Defence Identity European Security and Defence Policy (EU) Basque Homeland and Freedom European Union EU Police Mission Foreign Affairs Committee Foreign and Commonwealth Office Foreign Direct Investment Group of 7 Industrialised Nations Group of 8 Industrialised Nations Government Communications Headquarters Gross National Income World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative International Criminal Court International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty International Court of Justice Internally Displaced Persons ix

x

List of Abbreviations

IICK IMF ISAF JIC KFOR KLA MAI MOD MONUC NAC NATO NEC NEPAD NGO NMD NPT NRF NWS ODA OECD OSCE POW PRT PSC RAF RRF RUF SDR SHAPE SPLM/A START TNC UN UNAMSIL UNCHR UNESCO UNFICYP UNITA UNMIBH UNMIK

Independent International Commission on Kosovo International Monetary Fund International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan Joint Intelligence Committee NATO’s Kosovo Force Kosovo Liberation Army Multilateral Agreement on Investment Ministry of Defence UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo NATO’s North Atlantic Council North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Network-Enabled Capability New Partnership for Africa’s Development Non-governmental Organisation US National Missile Defence Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons NATO Response Force Nuclear Weapons States under the NPT Overseas Development Administration Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Prisoner of War Provincial Reconstruction Team, Afghanistan Private Security Company Royal Air Force EU Rapid Reaction Force Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone Strategic Defence Review NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army Strategic Arms Reduction Talks Transnational Corporation United Nations UN Mission in Sierra Leone UN Commission on Human Rights UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus National Union for Total Independence of Angola UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina UN Mission in Kosovo

List of Abbreviations xi

UNMIL UNMIS UNMOVIC UNSCOM WEU WMD WTO WWF

UN Mission in Liberia UN Mission in Sudan UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Iraq) UN Special Commission (Iraq) Western European Union Weapons of Mass Destruction World Trade Organisation World Wide Fund for Nature

Acknowledgements Many people have helped make this book possible and I am pleased to acknowledge them here. First of all, I would like to thank my friends and colleagues who generously gave up their time to answer my questions, offer assistance or comment on various parts of the manuscript: Shaun Breslin Robert Falkner, Colin Hay, Rosemary Hollis, Donna Lee, Matt McDonald, Gerd Nonneman Jason Ralph, Joanna Spear, Ian Taylor, Matthew Watson and Natalie Williams. Special thanks go to Alex Bellamy, Stuart Croft, Tim Dunne and Sally Morphet who offered many valuable comments on the entire manuscript. The book is undoubtedly better than it would have been without their expert advice. I owe an additional debt of appreciation to Rita Abrahamsen, Rob Dixon and Ian Taylor. We have co-authored several publications on UK foreign policy under new Labour and I have learnt a great deal from them in the process. I have referenced our joint work in the appropriate places in the book. I would also like to thank the politicians and government officials from the UK and abroad who have shared with me their thoughts on various aspects of British foreign policy. My appreciation also goes to the staff at the Labour party resource centre in Milton Keynes for helping me obtain a variety of official documents. I must also thank Alison Howson at Palgrave for being a patient editor and accommodating both academic and electoral timetables. In addition, Mike Brown and the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University provided the perfect environment in which to complete the first draft of the manuscript. Finally, I come to my two biggest debts of gratitude. My parents, Carole and David, have taken a passionate interest in the issues that lie at the heart of this book for as long as I can remember. They have been a constant source of love, support and newspaper clippings, and I am deeply grateful to them both. Last of all I want to express my thanks to Ariela Blätter for her love, encouragement and advice. I would also like to thank Taylor & Francis Ltd for permission to reproduce Tables 5.1 and 5.2 from Colin Hay and Nicola J. Smith, ‘Horses for Courses? The Political Discourse of Globalisation and European Integration in the UK and Ireland’, West European Politics, Vol. 28 (2005), pp. 124–158. xii

Acknowledgements xiii

In addition, parts of the text draw upon and develop some of my own work published previously as: ‘Who’s making UK foreign policy?’ International Affairs, 80:5 (2004), pp. 911–29; ‘The Rise and Fall of the ‘Ethical Dimension’: Presentation and practice in New Labour’s foreign policy’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 15:1 (2002), pp. 53–63; ‘Fighting for Freetown: British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone’, Contemporary Security Policy, 22:3 (2001), pp. 140–68; ‘La Grand-Bretagne de Tony Blair et L’Afrique’, Politique Africaine, No. 94 (June 2004), pp. 105–27; and ‘Britain and Africa after the Cold War: Beyond damage limitation?’, in Ian Taylor and Paul Williams (eds), Africa in International Politics (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 41–60. Paul D. Williams May 2005


Introduction The events of 11 September 2001 (hereafter 9/11) intensified debates about the UK’s role in global politics. To what extent had UK foreign policy helped shape a world order that could produce such acts of terrorism? How closely should the UK align itself with the US in their aftermath? What roles should the UK play on the world stage and what values should guide it? What and who was UK foreign policy for? This study aims to contribute to these debates by offering a critical analysis of the foreign policies pursued by Tony Blair’s Labour government during its first two terms in office between May 1997 and May 2005. During this period, Blair’s government set out a wide variety of ambitious roles for UK foreign policy. Before its 1997 election victory, the Labour party had suggested that some new directions in foreign policy were likely.1 After nearly two decades in opposition, the party caucus was weary of Britain’s traditional pragmatism in foreign policy and saw the development of a more principled approach as one area where it could clearly differentiate itself from the Conservatives and gain an electoral advantage into the bargain. For Tony Blair, it seemed clear that although the UK could no longer aspire to superpower status in a military sense, it was in a position to play a pivotal role on the world stage and to make Britain’s presence felt on a variety of important issues. First and foremost, Blair’s government sought to act as a bridge between the US and Europe.2 In Whitehall, key figures in the new government also adjusted the course of their ministries. The new Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, keen to enhance his radical credentials within the party, began reforming what he considered the conservative, ‘stuffy’ and opaque culture within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).3 In a similar fashion, Defence Secretary George Robertson declared that the UK’s armed forces would act as a ‘force for good’, while Clare Short’s new Department for International Development (DFID) set out to alleviate world poverty and ensure that Britain did not forget its obligations to the planet’s poorest citizens. During its first two terms, Blair’s government touted itself as being many things, not least a force for good, a friend of democracy and at the heart of Europe. It also suggested it would reject the crude realpolitik pursued by the previous Conservative government; it would put the promotion of human rights at the heart of its diplomacy; and it would find 1

2 British Foreign Policy under New Labour

a third way between capitalism and socialism. In addition, it claimed it would place stricter limits upon arms exports; eliminate world poverty (or, rather halve the number living in absolute poverty by 2015); make globalisation work for the poor; be a pivotal power and a bridge-builder between the US and Europe; champion a new doctrine of international community; fight wars for values not territory; cancel the debts owed to it by the world’s poorest countries; be strong in the world; actively engage with and reorder the world around it as a way of winning a ‘war’ against terrorism; take steps to improve Africa’s shameful predicament and, most recently, fight the forces of evil and barbarism and prevent hypothetical problems becoming imminent threats. Of course, beneath the hype and from the vantage point of May 2005, this list remained primarily one of aspiration rather than achievement. It had also quickly attracted criticism on four main grounds. First, most of these commitments were not as novel as Blair’s government portrayed them. Winston Churchill had spoken of Britain being at the intersection between the three ‘majestic circles’ of the Commonwealth, the English-speaking world and a united Europe; Harold Macmillan had suggested the UK could become the world’s ‘chief source of inspiration’, and James Callaghan had claimed for Britain the role of international bridge-builder.4 Moreover, especially after the end of the Cold War, most liberal democracies, including Britain, adopted similar positions on the major international issues of the day relating to the promotion of democracy, good governance, free markets, sustainable development and human rights.5 A second strand of criticism argued that Labour’s statements of intent were far too grandiose. Not only did this set the government up for a fall when it failed to achieve its objectives but for some commentators it reflected a certain naivety about the ‘hard reality’ of international affairs and the structural constraints upon foreign policy.6 Arguably this tendency reached its zenith in Blair’s speech to Labour’s annual conference in October 2001, which according to one journalist in The Times, ‘left Kipling looking wimpish’.7 In one sense, Labour’s ambitious objectives simply reflected a widespread and deep-seated desire for the UK to – in Douglas Hurd’s famous phrase – ‘punch above its weight’ in world politics. According to one former British ambassador, Brian Barder, Labour’s objectives revealed the extent to which the government, its opposition and the domestic media remained ‘addicted’ to pursuing an unrealistic ‘leadership role’ in international affairs regardless of whether the UK retained either the requisite capabilities or, just as importantly, followers.8 This mindset was not unique to Blair’s government: delusions of

Introduction 3

grandeur were a common theme in UK foreign policy throughout the twentieth century and doubtless before that as well.9 Barder’s proposed solution was to ‘scale down’ the UK’s world role to a level more in tune with its vital interests and capabilities. Instead, especially after 9/11, Labour ‘scaled up’ its international commitments. A third set of criticisms noted that for all its long lists of objectives, Labour failed to engage in serious reflection about the conceptual rationale underpinning its foreign policies and how it would choose between competing priorities and interests.10 Indeed, despite some early attempts, there was little serious engagement between British academia and Blair’s government on this issue.11 Arguably, at least part of the explanation for this state of affairs lies in the fact that the UK did not fit neatly into the conventional categories of international theory. As Steve Smith observed in the late 1980s, There is simply no convenient classification within which Britain fits: it is not a superpower, nor a middle power; it has aspects of a great power, but is caught up in a very complex set of interdependencies; it has to be involved in bargaining with defence and economic alliances and organisations, yet it is not a small power. No other country has quite this profile. Yet exactly because Britain slips between conceptual categories, it offers a very real challenge to international relations theory.12 This challenge remains today. But precisely because the UK is difficult to classify, perhaps more than most states, its role in world politics remains open for debate. A fourth set of critics dismissed Labour’s stated objectives as little more than propaganda designed to obscure the real impact of its foreign policies. These commentators challenged the assumption that the UK played a generally benign, even benevolent role in world politics. Instead, they saw the UK as an ‘outlaw state’.13 As the main proponent of this approach, Mark Curtis, put it, Blair’s Britain. is a systematic violator of international law and ethical standards in its foreign policy – in effect, an outlaw state. … Britain’s role remains an essentially imperial one: to act as junior partner to US global power; to help organise the global economy to benefit Western corporations; and to maximise Britain’s (that is British elites’) independent political standing in the world and thus remain a ‘great power’. … the Blair government is seriously out of control – an


outlaw state, undertaking its foreign policy in open contempt for international ethical standards, including riding roughshod over the United Nations. … If we were honest, we would see Britain’s role in the world to a large extent as a story of crimes against humanity.14 In sum, although the UK had lost its empire it retained its imperial mindset, helped manage an unjust world order, protected the fundamentals of that world order through coercion and sometimes military force and privileged the narrow interests of its elites over international legal considerations and the development and welfare of a significant proportion of the planet’s population. For Curtis, Blair’s government simply represented the most recent phase of this long and scandalous British tradition. Indeed, he thought Labour was worse than its Conservative predecessors because it explicitly claimed to put human rights at the heart of its foreign policy but failed to do so in practice, especially in places such as Iraq, Kosovo, Diego Garcia, Chechnya, Indonesia, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

A critical analysis of UK foreign policies This book aims to provide a critical analysis of UK foreign policies under Labour. It is therefore necessary to define both ‘foreign policy’ and ‘critical analysis’, neither of which have obvious or neutral definitions. In a recent overview of the secondary literature, Walter Carlsnaes defined foreign policy as those actions which, expressed in the form of explicitly stated goals, commitments and/or directives, and pursued by governmental representatives acting on behalf of their sovereign communities, are directed toward objectives, conditions and actors – both governmental and non-governmental – which they want to affect and which lie beyond their territorial legitimacy.15 This provides a useful starting point. However, Carlsnaes ignores the fact that it is not only states and governments that conduct foreign policies. Consequently, Christopher Hill’s definition of foreign policy as ‘the sum of official external relations conducted by an independent actor (usually a state) in international relations’ is more useful.16 This recognises that a wide variety of actors including states, transnational corporations (TNCs), churches, dispossessed peoples, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), insurgencies and international organisations such as the

Introduction 5

European Union (EU) can all conduct foreign policies. The focus here is thus the sum of the UK’s official external relations between May 1997 and May 2005, especially those actions undertaken to affect certain stated objectives, conditions and actors that lie beyond its territorial legitimacy. In defining ‘critical analysis’, Colin Hay’s work provides a useful starting point. According to Hay, critical political analysis entails five commitments.17 First, it should be empirical without being empiricist, that is, it should use empirical description as a starting point from which to build interpretations and explanations but should recognise that empirical evidence alone cannot adjudicate between competing interpretations and explanations of political processes and events. As a result, the normative assumptions and commitments of the analyst invariably find their way into the final product. In places throughout the book I make ethical judgements about Labour’s foreign policies based primarily upon whether Blair’s government lived up to its statements of intent. As well as being difficult if not impossible to avoid, making ethics a central part of the debate about UK foreign policy is something that the Labour government encouraged both its supporters and its critics to do, especially during Robin Cook’s period as Foreign Secretary (1997–2001). A second component of critical analysis is that it should include a balanced conception of the relationship between structures and agents, an issue traditionally central to the study of foreign policy. Within the academic literature on foreign policy analysis two conventional traditions are commonly identified: realpolitik and innenpolitik.18 The realpolitik tradition suggests that the course of a state’s foreign policy is largely dictated by its material capabilities and relative position within international society. From this perspective it is the structures of international politics that dictate foreign policy and it is of little consequence which political party or prime minister is at the helm of the good ship Britannia. In contrast, the innenpolitik tradition allocates political actors a significant role in deciding the sort of foreign policy their state will pursue. Different sorts of regimes and governments will thus conduct different types of foreign policies. Both these traditions, however, rely upon problematic distinctions between structures and actors as well as a clear boundary between the domestic and the international that is untenable in practice. Real diplomatic games always involve both purposive action and structural constraints. Similarly, political analysis has long since moved beyond dichotomous thinking about the relationship between actors and structures. Following Hay, I find the ‘strategic– relational’ approach useful.19 Put simply, this involves analysing the


dialectical relationship between the choices made by conscious, reflexive and strategic actors within the ‘strategically selective contexts’ – contexts that favour certain strategies over others as a means to realise an actor’s intentions or preferences – in which they find themselves. Ultimately, therefore, although UK representatives may often feel constrained to a greater or lesser degree by their environment, choices will always exist.20 The focus here is how the British state (as a conscious, reflexive, strategic and collective actor) conducted itself within the strategic contexts of the global economy and what English School theorists call ‘international’ and ‘world’ society.21 One problem with analysing the role of a single state within such diverse and constantly developing contexts is that it is often exceedingly difficult to disentangle UK foreign policy from the morass of processes and events in world politics. At issue here is the extent to which (in a world characterised by (uneven) political interdependence) events and processes can realistically be labelled ‘the outcome’ of UK foreign policy. In short, unravelling how and when UK foreign policy is ‘responsible for X’ or ‘to blame for Y’ or, indeed, ‘successful in achieving Z’ is difficult, if it is possible at all. Generalisations and the attribution of blame, responsibility and success must be made cautiously and remain sensitive to the contingencies of the specific issue under examination. Third, critical analysis rejects a narrow and exclusive definition of politics as the interplay of governmental variables and instead takes into account the activities of NGOs, individuals and the influence exerted by transnational norms, ideas and values. Defined in this manner, critical analysis is synonymous with analysing ‘the distribution, exercise and consequences of power’.22 In this case, it involves analysing the consequences of UK foreign policy and determining the individuals and groups that benefited from it and those that lost out. Fourth, a critical analysis should remain sensitive to the potential causal and constitutive role of ideas in UK foreign policy. What UK representatives think about the contexts in which they find themselves has important effects upon their behaviour. This raises difficult epistemological and methodological issues about the extent to which it is possible to know precisely what motivations and ideas are guiding UK foreign policy-makers. This study analyses and evaluates Labour’s foreign policy behaviour, in part at least, in light of its own justifications.23 This exercise resembles what the Critical Theory tradition calls ‘immanent critique’, that is, examining discrepancies between words and deeds and evaluating the outcomes of Labour’s foreign policies in light of the justifications given for undertaking them.24 Analysed in these terms, a more

Introduction 7

progressive foreign policy would entail closing the gap between Labour’s statements of intent and the actual policy outcomes that emerge. However, critical analysis also entails highlighting tensions between incompatible objectives and contradictions that may exist between the stated means and ends of Labour’s foreign policy. Locating tensions and contradictions can help explain the gaps between words and deeds. It also provides the necessary first step for resolving them. Finally, critical analysis recognises the contingency and inherent unpredictability of political processes, including UK foreign policy. There is nothing natural or inevitable about Labour’s foreign policy commitments. Where one commitment took precedence over others this resulted from deliberate choices and decisions being made. In UK foreign policy, as in politics more generally, things could always have been different.

Overview of the book Between 1997 and 2005, Blair’s administration exhibited elements of both continuity with, and change from, Labour’s traditional approach to international affairs. Four main foreign policy commitments can be identified within the various threads that made up the Blair government’s brand of liberal internationalism. The first was to multilateralism, that is, the commitment to finding shared solutions to common international problems and avoiding unilateral action wherever possible. The second commitment was the government’s desire to be considered America’s closest ally; what I refer to as Atlanticism. The third was strong although not unconditional support for neoliberal principles of political economy. The fourth was an explicit rejection of realpolitik and a concomitant commitment to pursue foreign policies based on more cosmopolitan (but unfortunately usually vague and unarticulated) ethical foundations. I refer to this as moralism. These foreign policy commitments did not exist in a rigid or static hierarchy. Rather at different times and with regard to different issues some took precedence over the others. Similarly, while these commitments were not necessarily contradictory, tensions between all four arose at various times between 1997 and 2005, particularly when US foreign policy moved in a more unilateral direction. One volume cannot possibly provide an exhaustive survey of Labour’s foreign policies. Consequently, choices had to be made about which issues, relationships, processes and events could illuminate the fundamental characteristics of UK foreign policy under Labour. This


book focuses on three aspects: its underlying commitments, its key relationships and its central issue areas. Part 1 (Chapter 1) provides an overview of Labour’s key statements of intent during its first two terms in office and an assessment of what was ‘new’ about it compared with previous Labour governments. It then outlines what I consider to have been the Blair government’s four underlying foreign policy commitments, namely, Atlanticism, multilateralism, neoliberalism and moralism. Part 2 (Chapters 2–4) explores three of the UK’s key foreign relationships, namely, those with the US, the EU and Africa. Chapter 2 examines the basis of Labour’s Atlanticism and its decision to remain the closest ally of the world’s sole superpower. In particular, it discusses the foundations of the US–UK ‘special relationship’ and the impact the 9/11 terrorist attacks had upon Labour’s foreign policy. The first military consequence of 9/11 was Britain’s participation in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, which is analysed in the latter part of the chapter. Before, but especially after 9/11, Blair’s government achieved its objective of remaining America’s closest ally. Signing up to a ‘war on terrorism’, however, generated several problems, as did the lacklustre international attempts to build a stable and democratic Afghanistan. Chapter 3 explores Labour’s relationship with the EU through an analysis of its stance on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). It does so by investigating how Blair’s government approached this issue both before and after the watershed event of NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999. I suggest that Labour consistently and successfully promoted an Atlanticist version of ESDP that sought to ensure the EU’s military capacity would complement rather than replace the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). In Chapter 4 I analyse the UK’s relationship with sub-Saharan Africa. After decades of neglect at the hands of successive UK governments, between 1997 and 2005 Blair’s government consistently devoted greater attention to African affairs than its predecessors. In many respects, the UK’s record on Africa became an important barometer of the depth of Labour’s moralism and its commitment to liberal internationalist values. In Africa, the government’s stated objectives were to promote peace, prosperity and democracy. Consequently, the chapter provides a critical analysis of its policies in these three areas before examining the UK’s support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). As Blair suggested in his speech to Labour’s annual conference in the aftermath of 9/11, ‘The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world. But if the world as a community focused on it, we could heal it.

Introduction 9

And if we don’t, it will become deeper and angrier.’25 Such sentiments encouraged Blair to set up a Commission for Africa that issued its report on 11 March 2005. Despite some successes, most obviously in Sierra Leone, Labour failed to resolve some of the tensions within its liberal internationalism and did not alter the fundamentals of UK–Africa relations such as over terms of trade. Part 3 (Chapters 5–9) analyses five consistently important issues between 1997 and 2005, namely, political economy, defence, international development and global justice, intervention and Iraq. Chapter 5 examines the economic dimensions of Labour’s foreign policy focusing particularly on its attempts to find a third way between capitalism and socialism in an interdependent and globalising world. In practice, the Blair government’s political economy both at home and abroad was heavily influenced by its understanding of neoliberalism and globalisation. Nevertheless, its commitment to neoliberalism was not unconditional and a heavy dose of mercantilism was always evident in its relationship with UK corporations and with regard to so-called commercial diplomacy. The chapter explores how Blair’s government thought about these issues and analyses its stance on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), international trade, the reform of the international financial architecture and commercial diplomacy towards China. Chapter 6 explores the elements of continuity and change in UK defence policy during Labour’s first two terms. It begins by analysing the 1998 Strategic Defence Review and suggesting that Labour’s defence policies emphasised four issues in particular: the importance of flexibility, power projection, operations other than war and achieving political effect with its armed forces. Changes of direction were also evident in the UK’s approach to NATO where emphasis was placed on the need to transform the Alliance to meet the challenges of a globalising and post9/11 world. In other areas, however, Labour’s approach deviated little from the policies of the previous Conservative government. Arguably the two most important examples were Labour’s policies on nuclear weapons and arms exports. Both generated considerable controversy and are analysed in the final two sections of the chapter. Chapter 7 analyses Labour’s policies on international development and global justice. After highlighting the highly iniquitous and fundamentally unjust nature of the current world order, I explore how DFID sought to address these issues through the strategies outlined in its 1997 and 2000 White Papers. Here Labour’s approach involved four central objectives: to raise the profile of international development issues, to develop an agenda focused on reducing poverty, to implement


that agenda by pursuing a joined-up approach across the relevant departments in Whitehall and to build partnerships for development with foreign governments, multilateral agencies, UK firms and NGOs. The chapter then provides a critical analysis of Labour’s policies in relation to the economic, criminal and environmental dimensions of global justice with reference to the issues of debt relief, the Pinochet case and the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and climate change. Chapter 8 analyses Labour’s engagement with what Blair referred to as ‘other people’s conflicts’, including the issue of military intervention. It does so by asking what factors drove Blair’s government to become so actively engaged in other people’s wars and what forms that engagement took? The UK, like most powerful liberal democracies, was inclined to argue that the norm of non-intervention should be conditional upon governments not systematically abusing their populations. This inclination was augmented by the powerful lead given by Blair’s executive on issues of humanitarian intervention. However, while Labour proposed some sophisticated criteria on when to use force to protect human rights and participated in some important enforcement operations, it was more common for the UK to engage with other people’s wars through diplomatic means. The rest of the chapter therefore analyses how Blair’s government responded politically to the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chechnya, as well as its initiatives designed to regulate the trade in ‘conflict goods’ and the activities of private military companies. Chapter 9 analyses arguably the defining issue of UK foreign policy: Iraq. It is organised around my contention that the 9/11 terrorist attacks represented a turning point in the way Blair’s government thought about Iraq. Consequently, the first section investigates the UK’s Iraq policy before 9/11, focusing on its most controversial aspects, namely, the effects of economic sanctions and the use of military force in numerous operations such as Desert Fox in December 1998. During this period, I characterise the UK’s strategy towards Iraq as one of ‘contain and punish’. After 9/11, however, the government’s strategy towards Saddam Hussein’s regime shifted to one of ‘punish and remove’. As a result, three questions became central: why did the UK invade Iraq in March 2003, was the invasion legal and was it effective? The final section analyses the invasion’s impact on three important aspects of Labour’s foreign policy: the war on terrorism, the Middle East peace process and transatlantic relations.

Introduction 11

The Conclusion reflects upon the ways in which Labour’s underlying commitments affected its foreign policies before highlighting some of the main contradictions within them. Under Blair’s leadership the UK played a variety of roles in global politics. Although at times some of these roles were contradictory, none of them were inevitable. Rather, they resulted from conscious choices taken by Blair’s government. Like all choices, they could have been made differently.


Part I Commitments


1 Understanding Labour’s Foreign Policy

This chapter explores the main objectives, assumptions and commitments that guided Labour’s foreign policy during its first two terms. To do so, it proceeds in three parts. The first section provides an overview of four of Labour’s most important attempts to publicly articulate its foreign policy objectives. This is followed by a discussion of the constitutive elements of the Blair government’s foreign policies in light of the Labour party’s tradition of liberal internationalism. Put another way, it asks what was new about ‘new’ Labour’s foreign policies? Not surprisingly, I suggest that Blair’s administration exhibited elements of both continuity and change with old Labour’s liberal internationalism. The final section suggests that the main constitutive themes of UK foreign policy under new Labour can be understood as multilateralism, Atlanticism, neoliberalism and moralism.

What is foreign policy for? Several years after its 1997 general election campaign, Labour altered the way in which it presented its foreign policy objectives to the public. Four documents in particular stood out as being indicative of what Labour thought its foreign policy was for. These were the party’s 1997 and 2001 election manifestos, the FCO’s Mission Statement of May 1997, and the FCO strategy document, UK International Priorities, released in December 2003. The 1997 general election manifesto: Because Britain Deserves Better Like all manifestos, Labour’s was designed to highlight the differences between itself and its political opponents. It was thus guilty of 15


exaggerating the elements of proposed change over those of continuity. Although foreign policy did not figure prominently in the 1997 general election, considerable political space had opened up to criticise the Conservatives, especially over their handling of the wars of Yugoslav succession and their divisions over the UK’s relationship with the EU. Nevertheless, the manifesto was careful to reassure voters that certain aspects of foreign policy would not change under Labour. The document thus represented an important early indicator of those foreign policy issues Labour would take in new directions and those where it would continue business as usual. The largest portion of the manifesto’s international section was devoted to European affairs. This emphasised Labour’s desire to be at the heart of European decision-making, that a Labour government would not join the single currency without a public referendum, and that defence policy would continue to be founded upon the twin planks of NATO and Trident. Electoral concerns probably accounted for the manifesto’s lack of discussion about Labour’s position on reinvigorating the EU’s common foreign and security policy. After the election, however, Labour’s activism during its EU presidency ( January–June 1998) and its signing of the St Malo declaration in December 1998 signalled its desire to move towards the heart of EU decision-making in this area (see Chapter 3). The manifesto also promised that Labour would conduct a strategic defence review that would be led by foreign policy rather than financial concerns. Arguably among the most significant new directions in defence and security policy were Labour’s commitments to ban all forms of anti-personnel landmines and to devise new regulations for Britain’s arms exports. As the manifesto put it, Labour will not permit the sale of arms to regimes that might use them for internal repression or international aggression. We will increase the transparency and accountability of decisions on export licences for arms. And we will support an EU code of conduct governing arms sales. In relation to the non-military dimensions of foreign policy, the manifesto vaguely pledged to reform the United Nations (UN) and to give a renewed priority to Commonwealth affairs in the UK’s international relations, neither of which made much practical headway. Labour also pledged to continue its habit (since 1964) of creating a separate ministry for international development (in contrast to the Conservatives’ preference for running an Overseas Development

Understanding Labour’s Foreign Policy 17

Administration (ODA) as a functional wing of the FCO). This reflected its claims to have a far stronger commitment than the Conservatives to international development and eradicating global poverty. To this end, the manifesto stated Labour would reverse the decline in Britain’s aid spending under the Conservatives and was committed to reaching the UN’s recommended target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNI on overseas aid. With regard to human rights, Labour promised to make their ‘protection and promotion … a central part of … foreign policy’ and ‘work for the creation of a permanent international criminal court to investigate genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity’ (see Chapter 7). But it neither specified which human rights would be given priority (Blair’s government did not, for example, ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women until mid-2004), nor how such concerns would be balanced with other commitments. In practice, the focus was often on civil and political rights with questions of cultural, social and economic rights pushed to the sidelines. The document’s final sections addressed global climate change, pledged Britain would reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2010 and suggested that a Labour government would use its influence to act ‘as a leading force for good in the world’. The FCO Mission Statement Building on the manifesto’s commitments, on 12 May 1997, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook declared his party would bring a ‘businesslike approach to Government’ by launching a new mission statement for the FCO.1 This defined the four primary goals of UK foreign policy as security, prosperity, quality of life and mutual respect. In his multimedia presentation, Cook emphasised that the mission statement was designed for an interdependent world where foreign policy could not remain ‘divorced from domestic policy’ but instead had to be seen as ‘a central part’ of Labour’s political programme. NATO was to remain the foundation of Britain’s security and defence policies while Cook signalled the commercial elements of diplomacy and the environment were to be pushed higher up the foreign policy agenda in order to ensure British prosperity and the quality of life of its citizens. The most controversial aspect of the mission statement was the final goal, mutual respect. As Cook put it, Security, prosperity and quality of life are all clear national interests. Britain also has a national interest in the promotion of our values and


confidence in our identity. That is why the fourth goal of our foreign policy is to secure the respect of other nations for Britain’s contribution to keeping the peace of the world and promoting democracy around the world. The Labour Government does not accept that political values can be left behind when we check in our passports to travel on diplomatic business. Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves. The Labour Government will put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy and will publish an annual report on our work in promoting human rights abroad. … [This mission statement] supplies an ethical content to foreign policy and recognises that the national interest cannot be defined only by narrow realpolitik. Like any sensible business proposal, the mission statement then outlined a series of benchmarks to measure Labour’s progress during its first term in office. It was, however, vague about substance and specifics. How, for instance, would the four goals interrelate? Were they mutually exclusive? Which human rights would be prioritised? What criteria would be used to adjudicate between competing commitments? Despite the media hype and party spin, the document was actually unremarkable in several respects.2 Not only were the goals of security, prosperity and quality of life traditional objectives of British foreign policy, even the idea of mutual respect as Labour defined it had been articulated by successive British governments since the dismantling of the Empire began in earnest. Nor did Cook’s claim that ‘foreign policy must have an ethical dimension’ imply a radical break with the past. Although Cook may well have meant to imply that the previous Conservative governments had pursued unethical foreign policies, in reality, foreign policies are never ‘morality-free’.3 The conduct of foreign affairs always rests upon a variety of ethical commitments and assumptions, whether or not officials recognise or acknowledge it. In this sense, what was really at stake in the mission statement was the particular code of ethics that would inform UK foreign policy. According to Cook, the choice was between Conservative realpolitik and Labour’s more cosmopolitan brand of liberal internationalism. It was also hardly surprising that the major practical elements implied by the mission statement and Cook’s presentation included a greater emphasis on human rights and the tighter regulation of UK arms exports, as these had been party policy for some time.4 The mission


statement’s novelty came in elevating the ethical considerations inherent in foreign policy far higher up the agenda and giving them an unprecedented public profile. Two factors in particular help explain this document. First, it allowed the incoming government to present ‘clear blue water’ between itself and the previous Conservative administration, although the differences between ‘new’ and ‘old’ Labour, and Labour and the Conservatives were often overplayed.5 The emphasis on ethics and specifically human rights had traditionally been a feature of Labour governments. Since 1945, for instance, it was Labour rather than Conservative governments that introduced most human-rights-related initiatives (though they were subsequently accepted by the Conservatives).6 On the other hand, since the late 1970s, there had been a number of initiatives by ministers of both parties as well as officials calling for greater emphasis to be given to the human rights dimensions of UK foreign policies.7 In addition, the need for Labour to differentiate itself from the Conservatives was, of course, connected to the search for electoral dividends. In short, Labour believed that their emphasis on human rights and ethics would strike a chord with the British electorate. This belief was borne out by opinion poll evidence which suggested that by the late 1990s Labour’s stance on foreign, security and defence policy was proving popular with the voters.8 An alternative explanation centred on Cook’s position within the Labour party. Between Labour’s 1992 general election defeat and John Smith’s death in May 1994, Cook had been entrusted with the trade and industry portfolio in the shadow cabinet. He was moved to foreign affairs in the shadow cabinet reshuffle following Tony Blair’s election as leader of the party in July 1994. At the time, Cook was clearly unhappy with this move and took some time to develop an interest in foreign affairs.9 His primary frustration was that his new brief gradually reduced him to ‘little more than a bit-part player’ on domestic (especially economic) policy.10 Cook’s personal political journey generated speculation that the ‘ethical initiative’ derived, at least in part, from ‘intra-party dynamics’. According to Mark Wickham-Jones, Having been given the foreign affairs portfolio, a politically low-profile though prestigious job, Cook needed to develop a distinctive approach in order to demonstrate his own left-wing credentials. The ethical dimension did just that: it raised Cook’s profile both in the party and in the country generally through the articulation of a new and potentially radical policy.11


However, the emphasis on Cook’s personal journey should not be overstated. First, the document did have civil service input. As the head of the diplomatic service, John Coles acknowledged, he ‘was closely consulted in the drafting of the statement’.12 Second, it is unlikely that the Mission Statement could have been launched without the approval of either Blair or his political office.13 On the other hand, the fact that Cook’s presentation at the launch placed a greater emphasis on human rights promotion than the mission statement itself suggests he was keen to put his personal stamp on the role of Foreign Secretary. The 2001 general election manifesto: Ambitions for Britain By the time of the 2001 general election campaign, Labour had altered the way in which it presented its foreign policy objectives to the public. By early September 2000, Labour ministers were publicly distancing themselves from Cook’s ‘ethical dimension’ after a number of controversies, notably over Iraq (both sanctions and air-strikes), arms exports to Indonesia, and the so-called ‘arms-to-Africa’ scandal over Sierra Leone. Foreign Office Minister, Peter Hain, for example, suggested Cook’s phrase had become ‘a hook on which we found ourselves, and I think it obscured the very big advances we have made’.14 Within Blair’s government, talk of an ethical dimension was commonly perceived to have become a ‘millstone’ around the Foreign Secretary’s neck.15 Some commentators enamoured with the theories of political realism were quick to suggest that Labour’s change of tactics was evidence that the party had finally woken up to the reality that foreign policy could never promote the sort of values Cook had espoused when launching the FCO mission statement. Such commentators labelled Cook a ‘buffoon’ and declared his policies a ‘farce’ that had left Britain an international ‘laughing stock’.16 Whatever the reasons behind Labour’s decision to change the way it presented its foreign policies to the public, the shift was confirmed in May 2001 with the publication of the party’s general election manifesto, Ambitions for Britain. In terms of substance, the document contained more detail than its predecessor but it broke little new ground (although it did include an explicit commitment to develop the EU’s military capabilities) and generally up-dated or reconfirmed the party’s previous international commitments. The five main international targets were defined as leading economic reform in Europe, working to restart talks on world trade, building strong, effective and responsive armed forces, raising international aid towards the UN target, and introducing greenhouse gas trading permits to cut pollution. The manifesto’s significance


lay in the way these objectives were presented. Instead of depicting Britain as a force for good, Labour reverted to the more traditional foreign policy message that active international engagement was the key to making ‘Britain strong in the world’. UK International Priorities Four months after Labour set out its Ambitions for Britain, the events of what is now known simply as 9/11 marked a watershed in UK foreign policy. Not only was the importance of foreign policy made abundantly clear but politicians, pundits and the public alike also engaged in arguably the most intense period of debate about Britain’s role in world politics since the retreat from east of Suez in 1967–68.17 On 2 October 2001, the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon announced that his ministry would evaluate whether the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) was still adequate ‘to cope with the new threats we face’.18 He suggested that while ‘military action alone is not the answer … there may not be an answer where military action does not play a vital part’. The result of his ministry’s reflection was a new chapter of the SDR focused on how the UK could best counter terrorism abroad.19 It concluded that security policy should aim to engage its enemies as far from the UK as possible. Consequently, the UK needed to augment its force projection capabilities to ‘prevent, deter, coerce, disrupt or destroy’ opponents and the regimes that harboured them.20 In order to succeed, however, the operations outlined in the New Chapter would have to form part of a broader political strategy aimed at ensuring ‘knowledge superiority’ over its opponents. The clearest indication of what this broader political strategy would look like emerged from the process of reflection initiated within the FCO by the new Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. Straw’s remit was to clarify Britain’s strategic priorities for the forthcoming decade. With 9/11, Blair’s government claimed that UK foreign policy had entered a new and unprecedented era. Before 9/11, Britain’s major foreign policy challenge had been achieving stability in Europe in the aftermath of the Balkan wars. After 9/11, the most devastating potential threats to Britain’s security emerged from the nexus between radicalism and technology, especially weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Of course, the potential links between radicalism and technology were not new but 9/11 significantly altered threat perceptions within Whitehall and, crucially, the level of threats that would be tolerated without an active response. This new era was said to require a more proactive and engaged foreign policy across a broad agenda. It also brought challenges that


would require the UK to work with a wide range of alliances and institutions, the most important being the EU, the US, NATO, the UN and the G-7/8. The UK International Priorities document suggested that ‘Strengthening commitment on both sides of the Atlantic to a global partnership between Europe and America will be the single most important goal for the decade ahead, because only through such a partnership will we be able to achieve our policy priorities around the world’ (p. 26). Beyond relations with the US and the EU, the document identified Russia, China, Japan and India as important global players with whom the UK must develop constructive relationships both bilaterally and through the EU. It went on to outline eight strategic international priorities: 1. A world safer from global terrorism and WMD 2. Protection of the UK from illegal immigration, drug trafficking and other international crime 3. An international system based on the rule of law, which is better able to resolve disputes and prevent conflicts 4. An effective EU in a secure neighbourhood 5. Promotion of UK economic interests in an open and expanding global economy 6. Sustainable development, underpinned by democracy, good governance and human rights 7. Security of UK global energy supplies 8. Security and good governance of the UK’s Overseas Territories (p. 30). Among the many foreign policy instruments that would be necessary to achieve these objectives, the ability to project armed force, managing relations with the Islamic world, and the ability to boost exports and attract investment through commercial diplomacy were identified as crucial. While the document represented a welcome attempt to clarify Britain’s future foreign policy priorities, it was not without its problems and limitations. First, it attempted to court audiences in both Washington and Brussels but skirted around the major points of disagreement between the two such as the debate about the preventive use of military force, the relationship between security and development, or whether foreign policy should be more concerned with ‘rogue’ states or ‘failed’ states. Second, perhaps in an attempt to appease Washington, the document drew no explicit conclusions about the fact that although the UK chose to align its future strategic choices primarily with the US, its economic


future remained firmly tied to Europe.21 Third, the document did not spell out what constructive engagement with the Islamic world would entail. Finally, it was marked by several ‘evasions’. In particular, whether, without significant change, the Blair government’s strategy of ‘co-binding’ to the US during a second George W. Bush administration would damage the UK’s other key international relationships; and to what extent the UK could continue its ostensible ‘bridge-building’ role between the US and Europe after the Iraq war?22

The constitutive elements of Labour’s foreign policy Alongside these documents, Labour ministers also provided a plethora of speeches, statements, interviews and articles adding flesh to the thematic skeleton sketched above. What common themes and commitments, if any, can be distilled from this mass of statements? A useful place to begin is by evaluating the extent to which the Blair government’s foreign policies were different from previous Labour administrations. As Rhiannon Vickers noted, liberal internationalism has long provided the foundations of the Labour party’s worldview and foreign policy.23 In particular, Labour’s brand of liberal internationalism traditionally incorporated six distinctive aspects. First, states were believed to share certain common interests and values in mitigating the worst effects of international anarchy by building international institutions to regulate state interaction. Second, all states had an obligation to forego the pursuit of narrow national interests and work towards a common international good. In short, states should construct an international community. The third aspect of Labour’s liberal internationalism was that foreign policy should be based on democratic principles and universal moral norms. As a consequence, secret diplomacy was rejected and peace between states was believed to rest upon achieving social justice both at home and abroad. Fourth, the Labour party believed that collective security systems offered a more stable and constructive approach to international affairs than a reliance on balance of power theories, which were rejected as being likely to provoke rather than eliminate international conflict. The fifth aspect was anti-militarism. This manifested itself in various periods as the pursuit of collective security, arms control and disarmament, regulation of the arms trade, and a suspicion of the use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy. Finally, Labour’s socialist ideology prompted a belief in solidarity between the workers of the world. In practice, such sentiments were never strong enough to withstand the pull of nationalism or British


imperialism. Consequently, as Vickers pointed out, they produced a consistently confused and incoherent colonial policy. Labour party members thus constantly disagreed over how these different strands of liberal internationalism should be interpreted, which should be prioritised in a given context, and whether they were actually achievable in the real world. These debates continued under Blair’s leadership with Labour developing its traditional liberal internationalism in some important respects. First, Blair’s government did not dissent from the idea that UK foreign policy should work to construct an international community designed to mitigate the worst effects of anarchy and develop common solutions to the most pressing transnational problems. It was, however, more explicit than previous governments in arguing that the construction of a genuine international community required significant changes. In particular, Blair’s government suggested that membership of the international community required states to reject realpolitik and make stronger commitments to a more cosmopolitan brand of ethics. This meant that Labour’s foreign policy often challenged one of the founding norms of Westphalian international society: non-intervention. For Blair, sovereignty was conditional upon the exercise of certain responsibilities, most fundamentally, the responsibility of states to refrain from systematically abusing their citizens. ‘It may well be’, he acknowledged, ‘that under international law as presently constituted, a regime can systematically brutalise and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do. … This may be the law, but should it be?’24 Blair’s government also continued Labour’s tradition of promoting what it saw as universal moral norms and values such as human rights and democratic government. This stance generated the usual controversies in international relations, primarily because calls for genuine international dialogue (that is, where all participants in a discussion are willing to change their own position in light of the force of the better argument) often sat uncomfortably with a belief in the universality of one’s own moral values. For example, Blair’s government held a firm belief in the moral and practical superiority of liberal market democracy over other forms of socio-political organisation.25 In this sense, the party’s elite articulated (consciously or otherwise) the Fukuyaman argument that liberal capitalist ideas represented ‘the end of history’.26 Labour’s foreign policy discourse contained none of the uncertainties and fallibilities present in Winston Churchill’s famous description of liberal democracy as the worst form of government except for all the others human beings had tried. Instead, Blair’s administration


seemed certain that market democracy represented the apotheosis of socio-political organisation. This faith in market democracy had three main effects. First, it downplayed the contested and inherently political nature of the concept of democracy. Second, promoting market democracies abroad often translated into prioritising the struggle for civil and political rights over demands for social, cultural and economic rights. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, this sometimes had the perverse effect of recycling old authoritarian elites into the supposedly accountable politicians of newly created ‘democracies’.27 Third, Labour’s commitment to exporting market democracy left it open to the charge of ‘liberal imperialism’, albeit usually of an informal kind. This charge was given added weight when one of Blair’s senior foreign policy advisers, Robert Cooper, publicly advocated precisely that (although his preferred label was ‘postmodern imperialism’).28 Like its predecessors, Blair’s Labour party also promoted a variety of collective security systems, especially the UN, not least because of the UK’s permanent seat in the Security Council. However, it also argued that the UN system did not have a monopoly of authority on issues of international peace and security. In Blair’s words, ‘our worry is that if the UN – because of a political disagreement in its Councils – is paralysed, then a threat we believe is real will go unchallenged’.29 Particularly in relation to so-called ‘humanitarian crises’ (aside from natural disasters, they are always political and usually result from war or authoritarian government), Labour suggested that in certain circumstances coalitions of states and/or other institutions such as NATO or the EU might be required to act to preserve international peace and security. Since 1997, the most controversial examples of the UK’s armed forces acting without explicit UN Security Council authorisation while claiming to uphold the will of the Security Council came in Kosovo (1999) and Iraq (1998–2004). The Prime Minister also suggested that international society’s collective failure to prevent or stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide added further weight to the argument that in extreme circumstances, the UN system may not be enough to ensure international peace and security (see Chapter 8).30 Labour’s tradition of anti-militarism, that is, the privileging of civilian over military values within society, was also maintained under Blair’s leadership. However, compared to previous Labour governments, Blair’s exhibited a far stronger faith that military force could promote humanitarian purposes. This resulted in Labour resorting to force with a remarkable degree of frequency. In particular, while employing


humanitarian justifications, Blair’s government deployed its armed forces on seven major enforcement or war-fighting operations in Iraq (1998), Kosovo, (1999), East Timor (1999), Sierra Leone (2000), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (2003). Finally, in relation to Vickers’ list, socialist principles occupied an ambiguous position within Labour’s foreign policy. While several aspects of Blair’s philosophical worldview sprung directly from the Christian socialist tradition, in many other ways, Labour explicitly downgraded the place of socialist ideas in its foreign policy. Blair’s supporters inside the party claimed that they had simply modernised socialist principles to fit the contemporary era. In contrast, their critics saw the rejection of working class solidarity (most clearly reflected in the rewriting of Clause IV of the party’s constitution) as a betrayal of Labour’s traditional socialist values.31 However, it is important to recall that Labour’s traditional liberal internationalism was never wholly socialist. Rather, the left-wing of the party consistently struggled to get the rest to take socialist principles (particularly anti-capitalism) more seriously in foreign policy.32 In this sense, Blair’s position was not fundamentally different. Moreover, while new Labour rejected working class solidarity as one of its founding principles, it continued to articulate the ideal of constructing an international community around values that protected the world’s most vulnerable groups.33 Arguably its most novel departure from socialist principles was its close relationship with the world of private business, most controversially perhaps with BAE Systems (see Chapter 6). This took several forms. First, through institutions like UK Trade and Investment, Blair’s government brought more medium-sized private firms into the process of making UK foreign policy. Second, not only were such firms given a central role in ensuring the health of the UK economy, they also became agents of constructive engagement to inculcate liberal values into illiberal societies such as China and Libya (see Chapter 5). Arguably new Labour’s most significant departure from the party’s traditional liberal internationalism was its emphasis on the concept of globalisation (see Chapter 5). This entered popular usage within Labour’s elite around 1995. Strictly speaking, it has been possible to identify almost as many different discourses on globalisation within the party as there are Labour ministers. Indeed, individual ministers regularly altered their interpretation of this slippery concept to suit their target audiences. That said, globalisation was most commonly conceived in broadly liberal terms as consisting of both the spread of liberal


political and economic values and the intensification of linkages between the world’s actors to create a situation of interdependence where (economic, political and sometimes moral) shocks in one part of the world stimulated ripple effects that crossed political borders. This understanding of globalisation closely resembled the much older concept of interdependence. Blair, for instance, suggested ‘interdependence defines the new world we live in’ on more than one occasion.34 This is particularly interesting because academic definitions of interdependence have long identified its three core characteristics as: ●

●

●

increasing density, that is, the intensity of interaction within the international system; mutual sensitivity and vulnerability to events generated elsewhere in the international system; and the capitalist construction of the international economy.35

Consciously or otherwise, Labour’s understanding of globalisation echoed these three meanings. Labour’s leadership deployed the concept of globalisation (often as synonymous with interdependence) for three primary purposes. First, as a source of discipline within the party, setting the parameters of what was considered politically and economically possible, and providing one of the central rationales for the party’s modernisation process.36 Second, globalisation was used as a tool to combat parochialism within the UK public by demonstrating the connections between local and international issues, the need to expand their political horizons, and the importance of reorienting political priorities to pay greater attention to issues of common international concern.37 Third, and most controversially, Labour suggested that globalisation offered the potential to end wars and build stable peace. In particular, Labour’s conception of globalisation shared the principal assumptions of the liberal-democratic peace thesis. This argues that not only are liberal democracies the type of state least likely to descend into civil war, they are also the least likely to go to war with other states they consider to be liberal democracies. Encouraging further liberal globalisation thus provided a potential antidote to wars both within states and between them. This conception of the relationship between globalisation, democracy and peace was particularly evident within the UK’s approach to conflict resolution in Africa (see Chapter 4).38 Globalisation clearly brought new opportunities but it also intensified conflict between and within communities and generated novel political


challenges and risks, not least through crime, environmental degradation and increasing the gap between the rich and poor.39 To deal with these risks, Labour pursued two interrelated strategies. First, it sought to build a society of states based on liberal rules and norms that would allow the UK to reap the benefits of globalisation while avoiding its dangers. To this end the party supported the development of regimes in a variety of sectors from the international financial and trading systems to outlining guidelines for when and how to use military force to protect human rights. Second, far from signalling the end of the state, globalisation necessitated a more proactive UK foreign policy. As Blair put it with reference to Kosovo, ‘We cannot turn our backs on conflicts and violations of human rights within other countries if we want still to be secure’.40 In military terms this put a premium on developing armed forces capable of ‘force projection’ to enable Britain ‘to go to the crisis rather than have the crisis come to us’ (see Chapter 6).41 Together, these two strategies can be understood as new Labour’s attempt to adapt the party’s traditional liberal internationalism to a globalising and interdependent world.

Commitments How did this understanding of liberal internationalism translate into specific foreign policy commitments? Despite Labour’s considerable attempts to emphasise its radicalism and novelty, its foreign policies were based on four rather traditional commitments. The first was to multilateralism. The second was the desire to be America’s closest ally (what I refer to as Atlanticism). The third was support for neoliberal principles of political economy. The fourth was an explicit commitment to alter the ethical foundations of UK foreign policy (what I refer to as moralism). Multilateralism and Atlanticism were staple commitments of UK foreign policy since 1945. Neoliberalism has occupied a similar position since 1979. It is only Labour’s moralism that represents a more novel departure. Although not necessarily contradictory, at times, these commitments were in tension with one another, especially when US foreign policy veered towards unilateralism. Multilateralism Blair’s ministers consistently emphasised the ways in which globalisation and interdependence placed many issues beyond the control of national governments acting alone, even ones as powerful as the US. In foreign policy terms, this rendered isolationism anachronistic and


highlighted the extent to which, as Blair put it, ‘our self-interest and our mutual-interests are today inextricably woven together’.42 Consequently, only an internationalist perspective and multilateral policies that recognised the ways in which UK interests were increasingly bound up with the maintenance of international peace and security would be able to resolve contemporary political problems. Multilateralism was thus necessary to achieve Labour’s foreign policy objectives and provided the central rationale behind the UK’s membership of approximately 120 international institutions.43 However, as disagreements emerged within several multilateral institutions, notably the UN over Kosovo and the UN, NATO and the EU over Iraq, Blair in particular increasingly emphasised the need for effective multilateralism and the looser, less institutionalised notion of partnerships in foreign policy. The latter included those between business and government, the G-8 and certain African leaders, the ‘coalition of the willing’ in Afghanistan, or between the West and reform-minded governments in the Middle East.44 Atlanticism Labour’s commitment to Atlanticism also emerged from the current structure of world politics, specifically the question of how the UK should relate to the sole remaining superpower. Like many of its predecessors, Blair’s government decided that UK interests were best served by remaining America’s closest ally and encouraging ‘effective US leadership’ to strengthen international institutions.45 It sought to do this by becoming a trusted voice within Washington politics. The underlying rationale was clear well before 9/11. As Blair put it, the UK would be stronger with the US if it was at the heart of European decision-making, and it would be stronger in Europe because of the special relationship with the US.46 This strategic alignment culminated in Blair’s announcement in the aftermath of 9/11 that the UK would ‘stand shoulder to shoulder’ with the US.47 At times, this strategic orientation sat uncomfortably with the idea that political interdependence required multilateral solutions to the UK’s major foreign policy challenges. For example, critics argued that for all the talk of a ‘special relationship’ on the eastern side of the Atlantic, evidence from the Iraq war suggested that Blair’s government was clinging to the illusion of such a relationship.48 In Blair’s defence, Chris Brown suggested that ‘given the disparity in capabilities between the US and the rest, managing the consequences of US hyperpower is best done by attempting to influence the way in which America defines its responsibilities to the world rather than by striking poses in the Security Council’.49 This issue is explored in more


detail in Chapter 2 but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Blair’s government held an exaggerated view of its ability to change the course of US foreign policy during both Clinton’s but especially Bush’s administrations. Neoliberalism As Chapter 5 demonstrates, the economic dimensions of Labour’s foreign policies were characterised by two contradictory claims. On the one hand, Blair’s government initially claimed to be bringing ‘third way’ thinking into the heart of policy-making.50 Despite the initial statements of intent, however, Labour’s attempts to produce third way foreign policies proved largely vacuous. Beyond ill-defined notions about developing a political economy somewhere between the dirigiste continental and free-market models, the third way quickly fell by the political wayside after it proved difficult to integrate into areas of government outside No. 10 Downing Street. On the other hand, Labour continued to support the Thatcherite legacy of political economy that had heavily influenced the party’s modernisation process. It also persuaded a variety of audiences (at home and abroad) of its commitment to depoliticise macroeconomic policy-making in line with the principles of the so-called post-Washington consensus.51 In this sense, after an initial flirtation with third way thinking, Labour’s third foreign policy commitment involved support for the neoliberalism associated with the post-Washington consensus. Labour’s support for neoliberal ideas was evident in several areas. First, it helped define the acceptable limits of ‘credible’ policy on a range of issues both at home and abroad, including Labour’s decision to grant the Bank of England operational autonomy and its approach to Third World debt relief (see Chapters 5 and 7). Second, it provided the conceptual rationale for Labour’s ideas about the appropriate relationship between business and government, including a justification for why private firms should play greater roles in UK foreign policy. In conjunction with wider demands for government to be transparent and accountable to the public, Labour’s neoliberalism also encouraged a greater emphasis on management, decentralisation and operational efficiency. As a result, the government borrowed heavily from new public management theories with their emphasis on decentralisation and the need to ‘managerialize’ decisions.52 The resulting management mentality was evident not only within HM Treasury but also in other departments, including the FCO and MOD.53 This encouraged a policy-making process increasingly concerned with managing UK Inc. One obvious problem, as former head


of the diplomatic service, John Coles observed, was that the priority accorded to issues of management and administration detracted from the time ministers and civil servants had to engage in strategic reflection about foreign policy.54 Moralism In many respects, Labour’s most radical initiative upon assuming office was its willingness to emphasise the ethical dimensions of its foreign policies and to reject traditional British pragmatism and (albeit enlightened) realpolitik. Although the phrase ‘ethical dimension’ was dropped as a way of presenting foreign policy to the public, this did not suddenly render UK foreign policy an ethics-free zone. Labour’s commitment to reject realpolitik in favour of a more cosmopolitan brand of liberal internationalism spawned a variety of policy initiatives, including its stated objectives of being ‘a force for good’ in the world, promoting human rights, relieving the debts owed to it by the world’s poorest states, not exporting arms to oppressive or aggressive regimes, and establishing an International Criminal Court to try those charged with committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Labour’s moralism was bolstered by its faith in the universality of its values. At times, this encouraged Blair’s government to adopt what Martin Ceadel described as a crusading mentality, especially in relation to the use of force. This can be characterised as the government’s willingness – in what it considers exceptional circumstances – to unilaterally suspend the usual rules of international politics (non-intervention) and resort to coercion in the interests of what it considers either order or justice.55 It is important to recognise that moralism and crusading are not necessarily negative attributes. Indeed, as a member of an international society that stood by while approximately one million Rwandans were slaughtered in 1994, a willingness to suspend the conventional procedures in ‘supreme humanitarian emergencies’ could be a constructive development.56 Similarly, by drawing attention to the ethical foundations of foreign policy, Labour’s moralism was largely responsible for reinvigorating debates about the UK’s role in world politics. Cook’s memorable phrase released a cosmopolitan genie from the official UK foreign policy bottle and no matter how hard subsequent foreign secretaries may try they are unlikely to succeed in putting it back. That Blair’s government fell short of its more grandiose statements of intent does not negate the fact that it provided friends and foes alike with an important yardstick by which to evaluate its foreign policy record. The rest of the book is an attempt to provide a critical analysis of that record.


Part II Relationships


2 The Closest Ally

Since the end of the Cold War, a central question – arguably the central question – for any state’s foreign policy is how it should relate to the world’s only remaining superpower. For the incoming Labour government the answer was consistently clear. As Blair put it in January 2003, the first principle of UK foreign policy was to ‘remain the closest ally of the US, and as allies influence them to continue broadening their agenda’. The UK was ‘an ally of the US’, Blair continued, ‘not because they are powerful, but because we share their values’.1 Indeed, Blair seemed to share the values of both the Clinton and Bush administrations, forging Labour in the same mould as Clinton’s new Democrats, and sharing enough of the Bush administration’s crusading values to be described as a ‘neo-conservative’.2 For the government’s critics, Labour was simply following in the footsteps of successive post-war UK governments that had been little more than lap dogs to American power.3 For the government’s supporters, its approach was simply the most prudent way to try and influence the White House in an era of unprecedented US strength.4 Arguably Labour’s central problem was that in many respects it had to deal with two different Americas. Although core ‘American values’ and objectives did not alter radically between 1997 and 2005, the Clinton and Bush administrations chose very different means to pursue them. With Clinton at the helm, US foreign policy focused on using geoeconomics to ‘create an environment in which democratic capitalism can flourish in a world in which the US still remains the dominant actor’.5 In this sense, Labour’s foreign economic agenda was largely compatible with Clinton’s (see Chapter 5). Furthermore, Blair’s strategic vision of playing a pivotal role to keep the US and Europe together seemed plausible. And although George W. Bush’s arrival in the White 35


House caused some significant teething problems, the strategy seemed to be holding. After 9/11, however, Bush’s America found a new mission that centred on waging a ‘war against terrorism’ and involved bypassing international institutions that it felt constrained US power.6 Blair’s attempts to prevent the US and Europe drifting apart in this tense political atmosphere proved difficult.7 In particular, his government’s desire to be both America’s closest ally and promote a liberal international order based on strong multilateral institutions and the rule of law looked less and less plausible. This chapter explores some of these issues by providing a critical analysis of the government’s relationship with the US. The first section focuses upon the ‘special relationship’ and the shared sets of expectations that have become institutionalised between the two states. In particular, I suggest that Blair’s government enjoyed something of a ‘special’ special relationship with the Clinton administration and, albeit it in different ways and at different levels, with the Bush administration as well. Blair’s own special relationship with Bush was cemented by the dramatic attacks on New York and Washington DC of 11 September 2001. The second section therefore explores 9/11’s impact upon UK foreign and security policy. These attacks prompted a process of reflection within the UK’s foreign policy community that in several respects mirrored the rise of the so-called ‘Bush Doctrine’ in the US. The main practical effect was that the UK, like the US, declared a ‘war on terrorism’ and redesigned its foreign policy instruments accordingly. The first battle of the war was fought in Afghanistan, which is the subject of the final section. Here, as in other military campaigns, Blair’s government achieved its strategic objective of being America’s closest ally but was guilty of leaving much of Afghanistan in a state of shameful neglect. Labour’s relationship with the US reveals several things about its four general foreign policy commitments identified in Chapter 1. In many respects, this chapter represents an investigation into the form of Labour’s Atlanticism. Moralism was also a constant theme of the relationship. In large part, this was based on the liberal self-images held by both states. It also played an important role in justifying the use of military force since 1997 (see Chapter 8). Nevertheless, moralism came to play an even more prominent role after 9/11 with the themes of ‘good versus evil’, ‘chaos versus stability’ and ‘barbarism versus civilization’ peppering the speeches of UK and US officials alike. Neoliberal ideas about political economy were also central to the US–UK relationship. Despite some well-reported disputes over bananas, beef and steel, the US and UK remained tightly integrated in economic terms and among the

The Closest Ally 37

strongest advocates of the further liberalisation of the international trading and financial orders (see Chapter 5).8 In relation to multilateralism, an emphasis was placed upon the construction of ad hoc coalitions at the expense of more established institutions. This was particularly noticeable with regard to the strategic dimensions of foreign policy. Indeed, with George W. Bush in the White House, Labour’s commitment to Atlanticism was often in tension with its desire to build strong multilateral institutions.

A ‘special’ special relationship? In one sense, all bilateral relationships between states and their populations are unique, special. Nevertheless, in 2000, Richard HodderWilliams suggested that with the Blair and Clinton administrations in power ‘a “special” special relationship’ had developed between the US and UK.9 Discussions of the ‘special relationship’ from the Atlantic’s east coast have often compared it to Washington’s other special relationships, notably those with Canada, Israel, Mexico and Japan. They have also tried to identify the substantive issues that make US–UK relations special. Chief among these were the institutionalised intelligence sharing and military collaboration between the two states, especially over nuclear issues, and the dense web of societal and cultural links between large segments of the populations and official bureaucracies of both states.10 Many words have thus been written in an attempt to define what the ‘special relationship’ is and who benefits from it most. On the UK side, former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee ( JIC), Rodric Braithwaite, for instance, described the special relationship as ‘an emotional comfort blanket for a declining power’ that had been especially beneficial to UK Prime Ministers, submariners and codebreakers.11 In contrast to this approach, Hodder-Williams suggested that it was more helpful to understand the special relationship as shorthand for the fact that US–UK relations involved three sets of shared expectations. First, there were unique expectations – higher than for any other US ally – about policy agreement. Rooted in the experience of war (both hot and cold), these expectations reflected the idea that as advanced industrial and liberal democratic states, the US and UK shared some fundamental values about the nature and purpose of foreign policy. Of course, they sometimes disagreed about the best strategies and tactics for achieving particular objectives but a special relationship did not require ‘unanimity of policy positions’. Indeed, as Hodder-Williams suggested, the importance of these expectations lay in the fact that it was often


policy divergence, not agreement that ‘causes raised eyebrows’. Second, although secrets remained, there were expectations that considerable amounts of sensitive information would be exchanged through the unique sets of institutionalised structures that have developed between the two states, perhaps most remarkably in the military and intelligence fields. The third set of expectations involved the presumption of friendship, not solely at the highest levels of government but also at many levels of state and societal structures lower down the official hierarchy. At times, these collegial and often friendly relationships kept US–UK relations special even when the respective leaders had fallen out. Understood in this fashion, the pertinent question was not whether such a relationship existed (it clearly did) but what form it assumed at any given moment. For Hodder-Williams, the first three years of Blair’s government represented something of a high watermark, a ‘special’ special relationship.12 Labour governments have not always enjoyed such cosy relations with the White House. As Alan Dobson observed, since 1945 three issues in particular caused tension between Labour governments and Washington. First, successive US administrations exhibited an enduring suspicion of Labour’s socialism – although as noted in Chapter 1, Labour’s foreign policies only rarely, if ever, involved the application of socialist principles. Tensions also frequently arose over the Labour party’s stance on nuclear weapons, especially its flirtations with unilateralism. Finally, Labour’s economic policies historically stood in stark contrast to the US free-market model of capitalism. Labour’s traditional emphasis on domestic health, welfare and education at the expense of defence expenditure often generated consternation within Washington.13 At times, these sources of tension resulted in US administrations openly supporting the Conservative party, as happened in 1962 and 1987. On each occasion Washington invoked the ‘spectre’ of a Labour government to justify its policy decisions, as President Kennedy did at the 1962 Nassau conference over the issue of whether to sell the Polaris nuclear system to the UK as a replacement for its Skybolt missiles. Although Dobson cautioned against drawing rigid generalisations, he concluded, ‘It seems fairly clear that US administrations have looked on Labour domestic policies with a critical eye, much more so than on Conservative.’14 Against this historical background, the ‘special’ special relationship between the Blair and Clinton governments was more remarkable. It was also noticeable that it was Blair’s Labour party rather than Clinton’s new Democrats that changed its position on the three sources of tension

The Closest Ally 39

identified by Dobson. With the end of the Cold War and the implosion of the Soviet Union the grand struggle between capitalism and communism was quickly replaced by narrower arguments about the merits of different varieties of liberal democratic capitalism. Similarly, Labour’s economic policies (both at home and abroad) gave Washington little cause for concern. Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 5, with few exceptions, Labour’s leadership staunchly supported the US model – or what Blair and Clinton started referring to as the Anglo-American model15 – of capitalism in the international realm. And in another attempt to appeal to the British middle-class and despite the fact that the UK has never possessed a completely independent nuclear deterrent, Labour quickly dispelled any reservations the party had once held about the UK’s nuclear weapons. Moreover, within a few years of assuming office, Blair’s government became one of the staunchest supporters of US plans to construct a missile defence system against nuclear weapons launched from rogue states (see Chapter 6). In sum, Labour’s policies on nuclear weapons and its approach to political economy removed the three main sources of potential tension between itself and Washington. It was thus not a total surprise that a ‘special’ special relationship developed. How far were the shared expectations identified by Hodder-Williams fulfilled during Labour’s first two terms? In terms of policy agreement, the record during Clinton’s administration is mixed. Ideologically, there was clearly an important meeting of minds between Blair’s new Labourites and Clinton’s new Democrats, especially between 1994 and 1998. In addition, much of Labour’s electoral strategy mimicked Clinton’s practice of ‘triangulation’ whereby Blair attacked both the Conservatives and ‘old’ Labour.16 After Labour’s election Clinton’s influence could still be detected. Blair’s influential Fabian Society pamphlet on the third way, for instance, was a direct product of a seminar held with Clinton and a ‘veritable gaggle of gurus’ in February 1998.17 But ideological convergence between new Labour and the new Democrats did not prevent them disagreeing over certain policies. While the Blair and Clinton governments consistently ploughed a lonely furrow in the Security Council over Iraq (see Chapter 9) and led the way in using force against Slobodan Milosevic, there were also significant areas where expectations differed. Even on these two issues disagreements emerged over the emphasis placed on regime change in Iraq, and Blair and Clinton had a particularly heated telephone call in May 1999 over how best to intervene in Kosovo.18 There were also clear disagreements with Washington over anti-personnel landmines, the establishment of the ICC, the scientific basis of the Kyoto Protocol, and British disappointment


over Clinton’s reluctance to put more effort into the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, in retrospect, expectations of agreement between the two governments remained high during the Clinton years. This was helped by the fact that Clinton’s Democrats spoke a language familiar to Labour supporters that emphasised the need for multilateralism, albeit of the ‘assertive’ kind. In comparison, George W. Bush’s Republicans entered the White House under a cloud of electoral controversy and speaking of the need to withdraw US troops from crucial peace operations in the Balkans. In early 2001, the issues atop the US–UK diplomatic agenda were Russia, National Missile Defence (NMD), the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and the European security and defence initiative.19 Disagreements were evident over all of them. Before 9/11, the main areas where expectations diverged were Bush’s continued intransigence over the ICC and the banning of anti-personnel landmines, his administration’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that it adversely affected US economic interests, the Republican’s acceleration of NMD and their lacklustre efforts to push the Israel–Palestine peace process forward. After 9/11, policy expectations about the strategic dimensions of foreign policy converged around the need to fight a ‘war on terrorism’ and were reinforced over Iraq. In one sense, this merely continued the trend of Labour playing the supporting role in US-led military operations as it had in Desert Fox (1998) and Allied Force (1999), and would later play in Enduring Freedom (2001) and Iraqi Freedom (2003). In the process, however, the growing technology gap between the US armed forces and those of its allies become increasingly evident. But the UK’s support was not only military. Diplomatically, Blair’s government was at the forefront of building multilateral coalitions to legitimise these military operations, especially in relation to Iraq. In other areas of foreign policy, however, such as Kyoto, steel tariffs, the detainees at Guantanamo Bay (discussed below) and the ‘road map’ to Middle East peace, Blair’s government was consistently at odds with Washington. Expectations that unique amounts of potentially sensitive military and intelligence information will be exchanged between the US and the UK were central to the special relationship. Although some have suggested that the special relationship had become a liability and the quality of information was declining, I found no evidence to suggest that the expectation of information sharing weakened after 1997.20 In the important area of intelligence, for instance, the origins of the special relationship date back to the exchanges of naval intelligence in

The Closest Ally 41

the late 1930s. It was later institutionalised by the UK–USA agreement of 1946 and remains unusually intimate today. The relationship was definitely not one between equals and the UK benefited enormously from piggybacking on Washington’s massive capabilities. Indeed, it was recently reported that American taxpayers paid for over half of GCHQ’s budget.21 According to Sir Stephen Lander, former Director General of the UK Security Service, there were several reasons for the special intelligence relationship. Most fundamentally, both states felt it was needed. This was helped by a long history of shared experiences at a personal operational level: being ‘friends in adversity’ against the Soviets and more recently in Afghanistan and Iraq mattered. Secondly, the respective intelligence services were able to complement one another in significant ways. While the sheer scale of Washington’s resources made it a valuable partner, the UK services also had their uses, not least their longstanding practical experience of dealing with Northern Ireland, their network of outposts in the UK’s Dependent Territories, and their language expertise on Africa, parts of Asia (notably Afghanistan) and the Middle East that the US lacked. In addition, the intelligence services occupied a similar place in the structures of both states’ governments. As a result, a great deal of intelligence is shared with the result that, as Lander put it, ‘the UK Weekly Survey of Intelligence and the Presidential Intelligence Brief probably look very similar most weeks and that tends to reinforce the closeness of the world view of the two governments’.22 But it is important to remember that signals intelligence (sigint) cooperation was not an exclusively transatlantic affair.23 For instance, the so-called Five Eyes allies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US) have intelligence-sharing agreements dating back to 1947–48. These agreements cover such issues as the Echelon intelligence network established in the 1980s and extend the UK’s Anglo-Saxon allies the exclusive prerogative to attend one of the two categories of meeting held by the JIC (the other category is where Britons meet alone). In addition, by 2004, the so-called Berne Group could boast 17 member states, including Britain, and representatives from 19 organisations whose heads of the security services met twice a year for formal security summits. Importantly, before 9/11 the US was not a member. After 9/11, however, the Berne states established a Counterterrorist Group with a wider EU membership together with the US, Switzerland and Norway. To date, this Group has focused on the threat from Islamic terrorism. This trend mirrors developments in the UK’s intelligence services where in addition to the creation of a new Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, the total effort


allocated to counter (Irish and international) terrorism activities rose from 57 per cent in 2001–02 to 61 per cent in 2002–03.24 During Blair’s government, two intelligence-related issues became particularly politically charged and impacted upon expectations about what intelligence was supposed to help achieve. The first involved questions about how US–UK and Anglo-Saxon intelligence sharing impacted upon the EU’s attempts to construct common foreign and security policies.25 Although the 1998 St Malo Declaration called for the EU to have its own ‘sources of intelligence’ the UK and French governments interpreted this phrase in different ways with the former envisaging a bigger role for US networks than the latter. It will be harder for the EU to run either coherent foreign policies or military operations if its members receive different intelligence assessments. Second, the debates surrounding the Iraq war produced evidence – discussed in most detail in the so-called Butler Report26 – that suggest Blair’s government was content to erode the distinction between intelligence and political advice. The issue is in part institutional since according to one leading authority, ‘the JIC’s composition [a mix of civil servants and policy advisers] would still seem purpose-designed to promote groupthink and reinforce prevailing wisdom; it is indeed the Whitehall consensus incarnate’.27 However, it was also partly about the influence of personality. Here, as Percy Cradock warned, the key problem was that intelligence analysts must avoid becoming ‘courtiers’ of the government of the day.28 This required a quid pro quo between analysts and their political masters: the analysts must report what they find not what the politicians want to hear, while the politicians must give the analysts the necessary resources and institutional breathing space to conduct their operations effectively. The evidence suggests that Blair’s government and the intelligence services failed to find the appropriate balance particularly over the issue of developing policy towards so-called rogue states.29 Like the role of the intelligence services, expectations of friendship are difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, an exceptional rapport clearly developed between Blair and Clinton even while the Labour party was in opposition. Reportedly, for Blair, the only incidents that ‘took the shine off their rapport’ were the Lewinksy scandal in late 1998 and their May 1999 telephone call about the use of ground troops in Kosovo.30 Furthermore, the respective party caucuses enjoyed good relations and close links existed between Labour and Democrat officials, a prime example being Gordon Brown’s adviser Ed Balls and Clinton’s Secretary of Labour, Robert Reich.31 Expectations of friendship with the Bush

The Closest Ally 43

administration were more ambiguous. At the highest levels, the informal and direct style of meetings between Bush and Blair quickly established a strong relationship that ‘really accelerated’ after 9/11.32 Lower down the diplomatic hierarchy however expectations began to diverge, at times quite dramatically. Key figures in the Bush administration such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton spoke a language of unilateralism and preventive military action that did not sit comfortably with many in Whitehall or the Labour party. As a result, a broad stream of opinion emerged within the UK and the Labour party that suggested Blair’s government – and Blair in particular – had become too supportive of the Bush administration on several important foreign policy issues.33 These included unconditional acceptance of the label ‘war on terrorism’ (see the following section), the idea of preventive war, and a shifting of international attention away from Afghanistan towards Iraq (leaving most of the former country in a state of shameful neglect). In sum, the expectation that Whitehall, the Labour party and UK voters would automatically be friends with Bush’s Republicans significantly diminished, especially after mid-2002. Looking back, feelings of solidarity and friendship with Americans reached their zenith immediately after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

9/11 and the ‘war on terrorism’ Upon seeing the second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Centre, Jack Straw reportedly remarked, ‘That’s it. The world will never be the same again.’34 Blair made a slightly different point that 9/11 ‘changed the psychology of America’ whereas he felt ‘it should have changed the psychology of the world’.35 But what exactly changed after 9/11 and what impact did the attacks have on UK foreign policy? For Blair, 9/11 had two main effects. First, it ‘marked a turning point in history’ that signalled the destructive potential of ‘a wholly new phenomenon, worldwide global terrorism based on a perversion of the true, peaceful and honourable faith of Islam’.36 This was not really accurate: not only was such terrorism not a new phenomenon, the World Trade Centre had been attacked by Islamic terrorists back in 1993. Blair’s second effect was correct: the attacks altered the mindset in the White House. When Blair declared that the UK would stand ‘should to shoulder’ with the US in a television broadcast on the evening of 11 September, it was clear the attacks had produced a similar effect within No. 10 Downing Street. The following day this declaration was slightly tempered by a five-page memo from Blair to Bush noting London’s


concern about what the Home Secretary David Blunkett called an ‘immediate, inappropriate and indiscriminate’ US response to 9/11.37 Three days after the attacks, Blair set out the UK’s immediate objectives. These were bringing to justice those responsible, including those who harbour terrorists; building a wide international coalition to act against terrorism; and rethinking ‘dramatically the scale and nature of the action that the world takes to combat terrorism’.38 The last objective included a reassessment of domestic and international legislation on powers of detention, extradition and the financing of terrorist groups via money laundering. More generally, 9/11 came as both a shock and a warning. It was shocking inasmuch as the means of attack had not been seriously contemplated – and hence planned for – by any Western authorities. It constituted a warning in that even if the actual casualty figures (just under 3000, including 67 UK citizens) were substantially lower than initially feared, the attacks highlighted the potential for destruction possible if the nightmare scenario of terrorists armed with WMD and capable of delivering them to Western cities came to pass. Blair summed up the UK government’s thinking succinctly in a statement to the House of Commons: We know that these groups are fanatics, capable of killing without discrimination. The limits on the numbers that they kill and their methods of killing are not governed by any sense of morality. The limits are only practical and technical. We know, that they would, if they could, go further and use chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction. We know, also, that there are groups of people, occasionally states, who will trade the technology and capability of such weapons. It is time that this trade was exposed, disrupted, and stamped out. We have been warned by the events of 11 September, and we should act on the warning.39 In short, the attacks prompted a collective reflection upon the assumptions underpinning UK foreign, security and defence policies (see also Chapters 1 and 6). In large part, this reflection took its cue from developments in Washington where 9/11 was widely credited with creating a new US mindset, especially in relation to foreign and security policy.40 But the need to adopt a more forceful and proactive stance to combat ‘terrorist acts’ was also endorsed by the UN Security Council.41 In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, President Bush ignored the right of sovereign states to

The Closest Ally 45

remain neutral in international disputes and demanded a loyalty test of the rest of the world to side either with the US or ‘the terrorists’. It was also quickly apparent that the subsequent ‘war on terrorism’ would be conducted on US terms. One year later, Washington’s new mindset was codified in the 2002 National Security Strategy. The ‘Bush Doctrine’ outlined within this document revolved around the three concepts of unilateralism (if necessary), pre-emption (when required) and pre-eminence (forever?). The first was a familiar feature of US foreign policy. The second was more controversial. After 9/11, a right to engage in pre-emptive self-defence had a strong if not uncontested basis in international law. The trouble was that especially after spring 2002, the Bush administration’s notion of pre-emption began to look far more like prevention, which was clearly illegal in international law.42 The third concept of pre-eminence, especially with regard to US military hegemony, was unremarkable as a statement of fact: the US was clearly the world’s pre-eminent actor. But as a political aspiration that the US would work to maintain this state of affairs indefinitely, employing military force as it saw fit, it was difficult to interpret this as anything other than an offensive stance. The net effect of the Bush Doctrine was to signal to the rest of the world that America would not be bound by international norms, conventions and institutions that it perceived as being contrary to its best interests.43 This included the Bush administration’s rejection of NATO’s offer of military assistance to conduct Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.44 For Blair, this political atmosphere presented the UK with a stark choice. ‘There is no compromise possible with such people’, he argued, ‘no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.’45 As a result, counter-terrorism was elevated to the primary objective of UK foreign policy. Blair’s government made this public in a document published in mid-October 2001. It stated that the UK’s ‘overall objective is to eliminate terrorism as a force in international affairs. There are immediate objectives relating to UBL [Usama bin Laden], his organisation and Afghanistan and wider objectives relating principally to the campaign against international terrorism more generally.’46 This objective, in turn, had two immediate consequences for UK foreign and security policy. First, it signalled a realignment of geographical priorities because to combat terrorism, Blair’s government had to be prepared to project military force anywhere in the world, not just within its own neighbourhood (see Chapter 6). Second, the new, lower levels of acceptable threat meant that deterrence and containment were no longer considered a


sufficient basis for dealing with so-called ‘rogue’ regimes. Inevitably, this led the UK to support pre-emption more strongly and to move further down the road towards endorsing preventive military action. Of course, military action formed only one part of the UK’s response to 9/11. Indeed, it was seen as crucial that military power should be used to promote a broader political strategy that included winning hearts and minds as well as capturing or killing known terrorists; strengthening international law; and altering the political climate in which groups like al-Qa’ida operated by engaging more positively with the Islamic and Arab worlds.47 In Blair’s words, UK foreign policy must promote international justice from Africa ‘to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan’ as a necessary part of defeating international terrorism (on which see Chapters 4 and 7).48 Action was also taken in the economic realm to stop terrorist finances and freeze bank accounts, most notably under Security Council resolution 1373. At home, a variety of changes occurred within the police and intelligence services, as well as new legislation, most importantly perhaps the introduction of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (ACTSA). This provided for among other things the implementation of the Terrorism Financing Convention and action against terrorist property, including freezing orders, extending police powers, regulating and criminalising certain matters relating to WMD, securing pathogens and toxins, and implementing criminal cooperation measures under the EU’s Third Pillar.49 The major problem for Blair’s government came in December 2004 when the House of Lords ruled that the indefinite detention of suspected foreign international terrorists under Part 4 of the ACTSA was unlawful because it was disproportionate and discriminatory. In response, the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, constructed a new mechanism of ‘control orders’ to contain UK and foreign citizens suspected of terrorism but whom the government claimed it could neither prosecute nor deport. After a series of acrimonious debates and compromises in both Houses, the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was finally passed with the orders subject to some judicial oversight. Shortly thereafter, the Home Secretary applied the control orders to ten men certified under the ACTSA as terrorism suspects. Some of these men had been detained since December 2001. Under the new legislation the government could detain a suspect for seven days during which time the High Court must determine whether there was sufficient evidence to justify the imposition of a control order. The new law drew major criticism from human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International

The Closest Ally 47

most of which pointed to the fundamentally problematic nature of condoning punishment without trial. While all these institutional changes had important practical repercussions they occurred within a political context defined by Labour’s strategic approach to countering terrorism. This was articulated on 16 September when, speaking from the Cabinet Room within No. 10 Downing Street, Blair declared that the UK was ‘at war with terrorism’. In this way, and with only minimal dissent from within the Cabinet, Blair’s government bought into Washington’s analogy that it was leading a ‘war on terrorism’.50 This had several predictable effects. Perhaps most fundamentally, once war was declared, attempts to remain neutral quickly invited charges of appeasement, antiAmericanism and consorting with the enemy.51 Second, waging war is best done with a clear understanding of the enemy. In this case, the enemy was terrorism, defined broadly by the UK government as the threat or use of action ‘to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public … for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause’.52 Defined in this manner as a method of political action, the government effectively declared war upon a tactic. The problem, as Lawrence Freedman put it, was that ‘Wars are fought between opposing political entities not against tactics.’53 For many Westerners, the third effect of declaring ‘war on terrorism’ was that it elevated criminal activities to acts of war (the 9/11 attacks were clearly illegal under both US and international law). This gave the attacks and their perpetrators, so the argument went, an unwarranted degree of dignity and political status. While many Westerners were uncomfortable thinking of 9/11 as an act of war, al-Qa’ida clearly saw itself as being at war with the West in general and the US in particular for many years. Unsurprisingly, it sought to exploit asymmetric methods of warfare against its enemies.54 Consequently, as Freedman suggested, ‘after an attack on such a scale, mounted by a political entity based in a distant country, war was not a matter of choice but a strategic imperative’.55 It was therefore arguably necessary for Western governments to engage in a war against al-Qa’ida and to take its potential to inflict suffering more seriously than had been the case before 9/11. But it did not follow that it was sensible to engage in a war against terrorism in general. A fourth problem was that as a label the ‘war on terrorism’ was inaccurate. Most obviously, the West in general and the UK in particular appeared primarily interested in ending terrorism against Western interests rather than terrorism in general. Moreover, ‘the terrorists’ were


overwhelmingly described as non-state actors. States became targets in the ‘war’ only when they harboured and/or supported (non-state, antiWestern) terrorists. This ignored the fact that terrorism by states continues to dwarf that conducted by non-state groups. Rather predictably, therefore, the ‘war on terrorism’ quickly attracted some unsavoury allies who saw the instrumental value in signing up to the Bush administration’s discourse. After 9/11, the incentives were quickly apparent in a wide variety of states that frequently engaged in terrorism against their own citizens, including most notably perhaps Russia, Pakistan, Sudan, Kenya and Uzbekistan. Despite the fact that the use of violence against oppressors is legitimate under the Geneva Conventions, the context of a ‘war on terrorism’ increased the likelihood that any groups attempting to alter the status quo by resorting to violence would be labelled terrorists by default. Another effect of declaring a ‘war on terrorism’ was that the objectives were often cast in terms of military victory rather than in terms of law enforcement and the successful prosecution of the perpetrators.56 The fundamental problem lay in the impossibility of determining when the last act of terrorism had taken place. A war on terrorism was thus a war without end. In this sense, the UK’s stated objective of eliminating terrorism as a force in international affairs was unrealistic since its achievement could never be verified. Finally, as noted above, waging war had effects at home as well as abroad. In wartime the official gloves often come off and governments find it easier to engage in activities that are proscribed in times of peace. For example, governments are likely to curtail civil liberties in the name of state security and look for ways to bypass the rights of those they suspect of being implicated in terrorism. In addition, power within government is likely to shift towards the centre, diplomacy is likely to be shelved before it has been exhausted in favour of more militaristic policies, and emphasis is likely to be placed on dealing with the symptoms of terrorism rather than the conditions that spawn it. In the UK, 9/11 prompted increased spending on defence, intelligence and diplomacy. But it also stimulated one of the largest relative increases in UK overseas development aid, which in the 2004 Comprehensive Spending Review was set at 0.47 per cent of GNI. Among the most significant institutional changes were the creation of a Cabinet Committee on International Terrorism, a security and intelligence coordinator within the Cabinet Office, and an Islamic Media Unit within the FCO. The first test of the government’s new policies and institutions came in Afghanistan where, once again, the UK was Washington’s closest ally.

The Closest Ally 49

Bringing freedom and assistance to Afghanistan? Although the Bush administration had provided covert aid to antiTaliban groups from late September 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October was the first military response to 9/11.57 It is still too early to offer definitive judgements on several contentious issues relating to the war, including the extent to which it was conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law (see later in chapter). Other issues, however, including the war’s legal basis, are clearer. Within three months, UK personnel were simultaneously engaged in three types of operation in Afghanistan: the hunt for the remnants of al-Qa’ida and Taliban forces, the construction of a new political order, and the alleviation of the humanitarian crisis. In the build-up to Operation Enduring Freedom58 it was clear that in military terms the UK would play a junior role to Washington’s lead. Politically, however, the UK helped smooth the ground for the invasion. This was done through two mechanisms: Blair’s shuttle diplomacy in the aftermath of 9/11, notably with presidents Putin and Musharraf, and the UK government’s dossier, Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States (4 October 2001).59 The dossier pointed the finger of blame firmly in al-Qa’ida’s direction but crucially also implicated the Taliban regime in the 9/11 attacks. This made it easier for the US-led coalition to justify Enduring Freedom as an act of self-defence (see later in chapter). The invasion began after more than three years of (failed) coercive diplomacy to get the Taliban regime to surrender Usama bin Laden for his part in the destruction of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.60 Bush’s reiteration of this ultimatum after 9/11 was not met although there were reports that the Taliban had tried to avert the US-led operations.61 It was thus clear from the outset that Enduring Freedom would be conducted on US terms and with the intent of removing rather than merely punishing the Taliban. Nevertheless, the military campaign began rather slowly with the US Central Intelligence Agency taking a leading role in identifying targets for bombardment and the most appropriate proxy ground troops who would work with US forces. However, after initially experiencing disappointing results (intensified by media pressure for a quick and clean war), by the end of October the US shifted to a strategy of ‘brute force’.62 This new approach included a wider range of targets and the increased use of carpet-bombing, cluster bombs and so-called daisy-cutters against Taliban positions. Inevitably, this generated criticisms about the numbers of civilian deaths.63 By mid-November the shift in tactics had produced


the desired effects. Between 9 and 12 November a series of strategic towns, including Mazar-I-Sharif and Kabul, fell in a cascade that toppled the Taliban regime and forced the retreat of al-Qa’ida forces.64 Throughout the conflict, the coalition forces relied upon a combination of airpower, intelligence, special forces and proxy foot-soldiers in the form of the United Front (which included the Northern Alliance forces).65 As one of the UK’s senior military commanders put it, ‘It was all about Special Forces, intelligence and suitcases of money.’66 After the fall of Kabul, the remainder of operations involved dealing with the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida forces still in Afghanistan. Since the coalition’s proxy forces became less and less effective at dislodging pockets of al-Qa’ida/Taliban resistance, these operations saw a significant increase in the numbers of US ground troops deployed to Afghanistan (approximately 4000 by January 2002). Blair had offered to commit 6000 additional British troops for these operations but Washington rejected this suggestion.67 UK troops participated in Operation Enduring Freedom from the beginning.68 The decision to deploy them was taken after only two post9/11 Cabinet meetings, both of which were reportedly devoid of relevant debate.69 In military terms the UK’s contribution involved assigning over 4000 troops to support the US-led operations (most of which were redeployed from military exercises in Oman), the military base in Diego Garcia, nuclear submarines capable of launching cruise missiles, airpower, intelligence and special forces. Until its withdrawal by the end of July 2002, task force Jacana, as the UK contribution was known, engaged in a variety of operations, most notably Operations Ptarmigan, Snipe, Condor and Buzzard conducted by 45 Commando Group.70 Its military commander was Brigadier Roger Lane while senior FCO diplomat Robert Cooper was named as Blair’s special representative to Afghanistan, reportedly because of his Asian expertise and his efficiency in getting things done.71 Alongside the humanitarian effects of the war, two other issues proved particularly contentious: the legal basis for Enduring Freedom and Washington’s decision to detain some of its prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Out of a variety of possible justifications for invading Afghanistan, the US and UK settled for self-defence.72 In international law, self-defence must be in response to an ‘armed attack’ and it must be both necessary and proportionate. Self-defence can be collective if the victim invites other states to join a coalition and it can be superseded when the UN Security Council takes measures to maintain international peace and security. In the event, and contrary to what Blair implied in

The Closest Ally 51

retrospect, Enduring Freedom was not authorised by the Security Council in the same way that resolution 678 (1990) had authorised Desert Storm.73 Instead, the coalition relied upon the customary right of self-defence, which in this particular case the US argued included both al-Qa’ida forces and the state of Afghanistan (referring here to the Taliban regime). The UK shared this position, justifying its intervention to the UN Security Council in the following terms: These forces have now been employed in the exercise of the inherent right of individual and collective self-defence, recognized in Article 51, following the terrorist outrage of 11 September, to avert the continuing threat of attacks from the same source. My Government presented information to the United Kingdom Parliament on 4 October which showed Usama bin Laden and his Al-Qa’ida terrorist organization have the capability to execute major terrorist attacks, claimed credit for past attacks on the United States targets, and have been engaged in a concerted campaign against the United States and its allies. One of the stated aims is the murder of United States citizens and attacks on the allies of the United States. This military action has been carefully planned and directed against Usama bin Laden’s Al-Qa’ida terrorist organization and the Taliban regime that is supporting it. Targets have been selected with extreme care to minimise the risk to civilians.74 As Michael Byers has pointed out, US legal strategies, NATO’s application of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the contested nature of the right to self-defence in international law and the post-9/11 concern about international terrorism all combined to produce a situation where ‘the right of self-defence now includes military responses against States which actively support or willingly harbour terrorist groups who have already attacked the responding State’.75 The US-led coalition was thus able to claim it was acting in self-defence yet still use military force against al-Qa’ida and the Taliban to pre-empt further attacks like those which occurred on 11 September 2001. In this sense, Enduring Freedom did not constitute a reprisal, which is illegal under international law.76 The UK government shared this view as reflected in its use of the phrase ‘to avert the continuing threat of attacks from the same source’.77 It was thus clear from Enduring Freedom that 9/11 had ‘set in motion a significant loosening of the legal constraints on the use of force, and this in turn will lead to changes across the international legal system’.78


The other major source of legal contention, this time between the US and UK, was Washington’s treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.79 On 11 January 2002, the US government announced that it was moving the first of 20 al-Qa’ida and Taliban prisoners captured during Operation Enduring Freedom to camp X-Ray, a detention facility at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. By April, the number of detainees was approximately 300 (by the end of 2004 the number had apparently risen to c.600). Initially, the US claimed these prisoners were ‘unlawful combatants’ and therefore not entitled to prisoner of war (POW) status. On 7 February, however, the US altered its position, saying that captured Taliban forces would be treated in accordance with the Third Geneva Convention but they did not meet the requirements of POW status laid down in the convention because they were not under responsible command, they did not conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war, nor did they have fixed distinctive signs from a distance.80 Al-Qa’ida prisoners, the US claimed, were not regarded as falling within the scope of the convention at all. While the US position may have some legal merit in terms of the status of the prisoners, whatever the captives’ status, they were entitled not to be held in ‘legal limbo’ and receive humane treatment as set out in Article 75 of the First Additional Protocol.81 As a result, the US said it would try the prisoners under military commissions or detain them during the pendency of the ‘war on terrorism’. Washington’s position attracted scathing criticism from a variety of sources in the UK. For instance, in November 2002 the English Court of Appeal said it was ‘legally objectionable’ to hold the Guantanamo detainees in ‘a legal black hole’, while Amnesty International made the important point that the detainees were entitled to the presumption of POW status unless a competent tribunal determined otherwise.82 Since several of the detainees were UK citizens, Blair’s government sought (and apparently obtained) assurances from the US that they would be treated humanely. However, the UK government also recognised the right of the US, as the detaining power, to decide on when and whether to prosecute the detainees.83 It was not until January 2005 that the four UK citizens held at Camp X-Ray were permitted to return to Britain. Upon arrival they were released but monitored by UK authorities. Two of the four men were subsequently denied UK passports under the Royal Prerogative. After the Taliban’s collapse, Blair’s government turned its attention to the tasks of reconstruction and stabilisation. This came in the rather limited form of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

The Closest Ally 53

Deployed to help the Afghanistan Interim Administration provide security and law and order throughout the country, ISAF operated separately from both the ongoing Enduring Freedom operations and the UN Special Mission for Afghanistan led by Lakhdar Brahimi. The idea for such a force was raised in the Bonn Agreement of 5 December 2001. This proposed that an interim administration led by Hamid Karzai should assume political authority on 22 December and run the country for six months until the loya jirga (a traditional Afghanistan national decisionmaking process) was convened to define the exact terms of the new government. On 19 December, and following a conference hosted by the UK government to hear the views of potential troop contributors, Jack Straw wrote to Kofi Annan stating that Britain was prepared to lead the ISAF. The same day, Geoff Hoon reiterated the UK’s willingness and ability to lead the force. He also stressed the government’s commitment was ‘limited in numbers – up to 1,500 troops – and duration, which will be up to three months. After three months, we will hand over lead nation status to one of our partners.’84 The following day, the Security Council passed resolution 1386 under Chapter VII, in which it took up the UK’s offer. The details of ISAF’s deployment were worked out in the Bonn Agreement and a subsequent Military Technical Agreement ( January 2002) between the ISAF commander, Major-General John McColl, and the Afghanistan Interim Administration. Although the US did not contribute personnel to ISAF it did provide crucial help to deploy and sustain it. By mid-February, ISAF reached its full operating capacity of approximately 5000 personnel from 18 states. This included some 1800 British troops. As it turned out, the UK remained the lead state within ISAF until Turkey took over the role on 20 June 2002.85 By mid-2004, while ISAF numbers had increased to approximately 6500 the UK contingent had been reduced to 315 troops.86 Initially, ISAF’s area of operations was limited to Kabul and its environs, extending at its farthest reach to the Bagram airbase. These limits stemmed from two compromises. First, while the UK emphasised that political and social reconstruction should form a crucial component of post-war operations in Afghanistan, the Bush administration preferred to concentrate on training a new national army rather than keeping the peace in Kabul.87 The compromise involved the UK leading what was in effect a city-building operation in Kabul but ignoring reconstruction tasks in the rest of the country. The second compromise was between the ISAF contributors and the Northern Alliance. While the UK suggested ISAF should consist of some 8000 troops the Northern Alliance argued for a maximum of 1000.88 As noted above, a force of 5000 was agreed.


Within these limited terms of reference, ISAF did bring a significant measure of stability to Kabul and created space for the Interim Administration to get to work. Specifically, under UK command, ISAF mounted 2185 joint patrols with Afghan security forces in and around Kabul, disposed of nearly three million munitions, 80 per cent of which were anti-personnel landmines, trained the 1st Battalion of the new Afghan National Guard, which subsequently played an important role in ensuring the security of the loya jirga, and completed some 200 humanitarian aid projects.89 On the negative side, ISAF failed to make serious progress on issues of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and the UK-led efforts to reduce Afghanistan’s drug trade also made little headway.90 As the FAC concluded in mid-2004, ‘there is little, if any sign of the war on drugs being won and every indication that the situation is likely to deteriorate, at least in the short term’.91 By spring 2002, two main areas of controversy were evident. The first revolved around the UK’s decision to deploy a 1700-strong commando battlegroup to fight alongside US troops against the remnants of the Taliban regime and suspected al-Qa’ida forces. Announced by Hoon on 18 March 2002, this had come in response to a formal request for troops from Washington. Nevertheless, it generated angry comments from the Conservative party not only because little advance notice of the deployment was given to Parliament but also because the presence of British troops in a war-fighting role in Afghanistan increased the likelihood that ISAF could become a target for reprisals.92 In addition, ISAF came under repeated criticism for being woefully under ambitious and refusing to expand beyond Kabul.93 The US and UK governments were reportedly divided on the issue with the State Department and the FCO favouring ISAF’s expansion and the Pentagon and the MOD opposed.94 While ISAF remained tied to Kabul it had virtually no impact upon the security situation elsewhere in the country, where warlordism, heroin production and banditry continued largely unabated. The most persuasive explanation for ISAF’s limited focus was that its contributors lacked the political will to engage in serious state-building in Afghanistan.95 As a result they were unwilling to provide ISAF with the extra resources necessary to take on a role beyond Kabul.96 As John Kampfner suggested, it quickly became clear that while Afghanistan had become ‘nothing more than an encumbrance to the US’, European states lacked the political will and the relevant capabilities to engage in a serious effort at reconstructing an entire state rather than just its capital city.97 The compromise over expanding ISAF outside Kabul came in November 2002 in the form of Provincial Reconstruction

The Closest Ally 55

Teams (PRTs) – small groups of military and civilian personnel intended to extend the authority of the Afghan central government beyond the capital. By autumn 2004, 19 PRTs had been established throughout the country. US personnel led most of them but NATO ISAF forces led three, two of which were under UK control in Meymana (approximately 70 personnel) and Mazar-e Sharif (involving a military component of about 130 troops). The Foreign Affairs Committee praised the PRTs as ‘one of the success stories of international engagement in Afghanistan’.98 However, the Committee also reiterated that their success should be judged against the backdrop that ISAF ‘has been consistently underresourced and overstretched’.99 As this discussion suggests, Blair’s government achieved its objective of becoming Washington’s closest ally during both the Clinton and Bush administrations. The bonds of the special relationship remained solid over fundamental issues such as Kosovo, Iraq, the war on terrorism, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the sharing of military technology and intelligence. This stance was not without its problems, not least the unresolved dilemmas of trying to fight a war on terrorism and the failure to consolidate a liberal political order in post-Taliban Afghanistan. In some other areas, however, such as the timing of ground troops for Kosovo, the ICC and the Kyoto Protocol (see also Chapter 7), Blair’s government disagreed with Washington. In addition, after Bush’s Republicans took office there were signs that a significant number of Labour MPs and large sections of the UK public were deeply uncomfortable with the Bush doctrine. In this sense there was a slight watering down of Labour’s Atlanticism, especially after 2002. But this was evident in some of the UK’s foreign relationships more than others. While Blair’s government decided to engage far more proactively than Washington in African affairs (see Chapter 4), as the next chapter argues, Atlanticism remained central to its approach to the EU’s common foreign and security policy and its decision to give the Union its own military capabilities.

3 Living in (and with) Europe

Labour’s decision to develop a military capacity for the EU as part of the Union’s common foreign and security policy (CFSP) has been described as ‘perhaps the most remarkable, if not vote-catching, policy’ of Blair’s first term in office.1 Contrary to claims that the ESDP had been dealt a fatal blow by the Iraq crisis it weathered the storm.2 Although the Union’s members fell short of meeting their own optimistic targets, in 2003 ESDP took its first practical steps in Bosnia, Macedonia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). That the UK played a backseat role to France in these operations was indicative of the lower priority Whitehall gave to the ESDP project after 9/11. However, events since 1997 can also be interpreted as a victory for the UK’s vision of ESDP as a necessary tactical instrument to reinvigorate its preferred Atlanticist strategy toward European security. This view was given added credibility when in December 2004, the Union established EUFOR, a 7000 strong peace operation designed to take over from NATO’s Stabilisation Force in Bosnia. EUFOR involved troops from 33 states and was led by the UK, which also contributed approximately 1000 soldiers. It also provided more evidence that the UK was prepared to support an ESDP that was complementary to NATO. To analyse these developments this chapter begins with a discussion of Labour’s approach to European security paying particular attention to why Blair’s government broke with the UK’s traditional reluctance to develop a military capacity for the EU. The evidence suggests that the shift in policy represented a change of tactics rather than a rejection of the UK’s traditional Atlanticist strategy. In many respects the wars in the former Yugoslavia in general and the Kosovo crisis of 1998–99 in particular provided the main impetus for accelerating ESDP’s development. The second section thus reflects upon the UK’s role in the Kosovo crisis 56

Living in (and with) Europe 57

and the controversies that were generated by it. NATO’s Operation Allied Force had important repercussions not only for European security but also for questions about the relationship between sovereignty, selfdetermination and human rights more generally (see Chapter 8). The final section analyses the UK’s position towards the ESDP after Kosovo paying particular attention to the impact of 9/11 and the war in Iraq. The evidence presented in this chapter also reveals something about Labour’s four foreign policy commitments. One conclusion is that Blair’s government exhibited a flexible but still Atlanticist approach to European security that emphasised the importance of achieving practical results. In this sense, Labour proved willing to experiment with different forms of multilateralism for different issues: NATO for highend military tasks and ESDP for operations lower down the military scale. Labour’s moralism and its commitment to neoliberalism were also evident inasmuch as the whole purpose of adding a military dimension to the CFSP was to project the Union’s liberal values beyond its borders. In addition, the enlargement of both the EU and NATO was viewed as a means of expanding the liberal democratic zone of peace.

Labour and European security before Kosovo Since at least 1949, successive UK government’s looked at European security issues through an Atlanticist prism wherein defence was (and should remain) primarily dealt with in NATO.3 This was partly because they had a higher degree of ‘confidence in (and closeness to) the American hegemon’ and a relative ‘lack of confidence in (and relative distance from) the European pretender’.4 It was also partly out of a fear that creating a credible EU military capability may jeopardise NATO by encouraging US isolationism. Nevertheless, Atlanticism was not synonymous with unquestioning support for US foreign policy: even British governments grumbled about US hegemony, particularly during Reagan’s presidency. This approach persisted with surprisingly few changes after the Cold War with Atlanticism and inter-governmentalism remaining the central themes.5 This was reflected by the fact that between 1994 and 1996 the UK was quite content to develop a European security and defence identity (ESDI) within the NATO framework but was reluctant to pursue any similar plans within the EU.6 These traditional assumptions continued throughout Labour’s initial months in office with Blair’s government vetoing a 10-state proposal to merge the EU with the Western European Union (WEU) at the Amsterdam summit in June 1997. But Labour’s refusal to scrap the WEU was only temporary


and Blair subsequently put the Amsterdam veto down to the lack of time available for his administration to consider the proposal.7 So although Labour’s 1997 manifesto clearly identified its desire to play a leadership role at the heart of Europe, it was not immediately obvious that this would involve championing the development of ESDP. By the end of 1997, however, Blair was giving the European dimension pride of place in his statements on UK foreign policy. In a keynote speech in November 1997, he suggested that the first ‘guiding light’ principle of UK foreign policy was to ‘end the isolation of the last 20 years and be a leading partner in Europe’. His second principle was: ‘Strong in Europe and strong with the US. There is no choice between the two. Stronger with one means stronger with the other. Our aim should be to deepen our relationship with the US at all levels. We are the bridge between the US and Europe. Let us use it.’8 These aspirations raised two main questions: where exactly was Labour going to lead Europe, and who would follow it? Blair’s favoured analogy of the UK acting as a bridge between Europe and the US painted a rather unbelievable picture that implied other European states lacked the ability to effectively communicate with the US. In contrast, especially during Clinton’s drive on geo-economics, Washington often suggested that Germany was among its most important bilateral relationships in Europe. Blair’s speeches and Labour’s intimate relationship with Clinton’s new Democrats also often gave the distinct impression that his bridge more closely resembled a conveyerbelt heading towards the US rather than a highway with the traffic flowing equally in both directions.9 In other words, Blair’s bridge was widely perceived as leading to an Atlanticist conception of European security issues. While this may not have seemed such an appalling prospect during Clinton’s administration, George W. Bush’s arrival in the White House left some EU members (notably France and Germany) feeling distinctly queasy at the prospect of such a journey.10 The type of leadership on offer from Labour thus affected its ability to attract followers. But this was not the only relevant factor. During Labour’s first few months in office it proved easy to win plaudits from European leaders who had experienced nearly two decades of frosty relations with the previous Thatcher and Major governments. However, as Brian Barder observed, despite Labour’s statements of intent, in several respects, the UK remained uniquely unsuited to playing a leading role in EU-affairs.11 First, Britain remained outside the single currency and was deeply ambiguous about the possibility of joining it in the future. Second, public opinion remained sceptical of the EU and its institutions


with very few Britons sharing the vision evident on the continent of a more deeply integrated Union. Finally, Barder argued that despite Labour’s appeals to project a new identity for the UK, its public and officials found it difficult to shake off their traditionally inflated sense of national superiority. Despite these problems, during 1998 Blair’s government clearly shifted its position on the potential role the EU could play within the security realm. In two important senses, however, the EU already played security roles even while it remained a civilian power. First, the process of European integration helped fulfil the crucial security function of avoiding a return to Europe’s past history of war and conflict.12 Second, because the process of European integration was founded upon liberal economic and political values, the EU functioned as a mature pluralistic security community whose members had learned to conduct relations with one another without resorting to the threat or use of military force.13 And because of the liberal economic and political credentials required to meet the acquis communautaire, EU enlargement by definition expanded the zone of liberal democratic peace. These factors suggest that Blair’s government was not attempting to create a security role for an organisation that previously had none. Rather, it was keen to develop the EU’s military capacity as one of a range of instruments it could deploy in pursuit of its values. These factors also highlight the extent to which the public debate and official conception of ESDP has framed security in largely military terms. The roots of Labour’s shift reportedly lay in a confidential memorandum written by a senior FCO diplomat, Robert Cooper, in May 1998 and the work of a small community of fewer than two-dozen officials advocating the reform of Britain’s traditional Atlanticist approach.14 The memo apparently set out the case for developing the EU’s military capacity separate from the WEU but so as to complement NATO structures.15 Blair’s first public indication that the deadlock on European security issues needed to be broken appears to have come at the informal Pörtschach summit in Austria, 24–25 October 1998. At this stage, however, the details of his preferred position remained unclear. On 4 November in Vienna, at the first informal meeting of EU Defence Ministers, George Robertson reiterated his government’s desire to develop a new approach to these issues and called for a simplification of the current institutional procedures governing the EU’s use of military force. The UK’s shift was formalised shortly afterwards at the Franco-British summit at St Malo, 3–4 December. Since then, Howorth’s claim (made in 2000) that the UK had played a leading role


in all the EU’s major security initiatives remains accurate five years later.16 The St Malo declaration was described by one respected commentator as ‘a diplomatic bombshell’ and ‘a leap in the dark’ which broke the ‘taboo on military action by the EU’.17 What the declaration did not do was indicate where the ESDP process might end, or even lead.18 It did, however, confirm at least five main areas of Franco-British agreement. First, that the EU must have the capacity to decide when to conduct ‘autonomous action’ and the ability to act in situations requiring the use of military force. Second, NATO would remain the foundation for Europe’s collective defence. In addition, the relevant EU decisionmaking structures should remain inter-governmental and the Union required access to the intelligence and other technical capabilities necessary to facilitate military action without involving the whole of NATO. Finally, the Union needed to create the armed forces necessary for the envisaged operations.19 Such commitments were notably different from Labour’s Strategic Defence Review (July 1998), which had suggested that European defence would be conducted through NATO, ESDI and the WEU (see Chapter 6). Nor could these areas of Franco-British convergence conceal some important differences, particularly over ESDP’s scale, future direction, and its relationship to NATO. The French view emphasised that the EU was always an autonomous organisation with the right to develop ESDP as it saw fit and which would seek the most appropriate synergies with NATO. ESDP thus represented a mechanism designed to develop European capacity albeit by initially making use of NATO structures and assets. The UK, on the other hand, saw ESDP as relying upon NATO’s structures and planning procedures and as a way of maintaining NATO credibility.20 St Malo’s ‘constructive ambiguity’21 also meant it was particularly important for Blair’s government to ‘sell’ the declaration to at least four different audiences, each of which had very different expectations about what it did – and should – signal: Blair’s EU partners wanted confirmation that the UK’s shift was genuine; Washington seemed to want both confirmation that the Union was serious about taking responsibility for European security but not serious enough to dislodge the US from its position as first among equals in NATO;22 the small number of UK elites interested in such issues needed reassurance about how exactly this new Euro-Atlantic balancing act would work; and the British public needed clarification of why such a shift was necessary at all.23 The result was a mixture of rather ambiguous signals and the UK opting to define ‘autonomous action’ in such a way as to ensure the EU was able to act


when NATO, which retained the right of first refusal, decided not to become fully engaged. What, then, explains Labour’s shift in policy? Not surprisingly, several factors contributed to the decision. First, in contrast to the previous Conservative government, Labour had clearly articulated a different UK identity that involved being at the heart of Europe. Since the UK remained outside European monetary union and on the edge of justice and home affairs issues, foreign and security policy was one of the few areas in which Blair could plausibly claim a leading role.24 Second, Europe’s weak response to earlier crises in the region highlighted the EU’s lack of an effective mechanism for formulating – let alone implementing – an agreed crisis management policy on anything but the smallest military scale. The memory of the Bosnian war (1992–95) was particularly important.25 This reminded UK officials that not only should they avoid putting forces that were not strong enough to look after themselves into a war-zone but that the EU’s two main military powers, the UK and France, were likely to end up working closely together in any regional crisis. It also left a powerful reminder that, as Lawrence Freedman put it, ‘there is damn all we can do as Europeans alone, or what we can do is just inadequate without the United States’.26 The point was emphatically hammered home in late 1998 when the crisis that had been brewing in Kosovo since 1989 started to boil. Blair, for one, was apparently appalled by the state of EU capacity to respond when he was first briefed on Kosovo in mid-1998.27 However, arguably the most important reason for Labour’s shift was the belief in Whitehall that developing a military capacity for the EU would actually help strengthen NATO. By late 1997, Washington was signalling that far from undermining NATO’s cohesion, developing a European military capacity was instead becoming a precondition for its survival as a viable alliance. Whitehall apparently took these signals seriously and began to see the development of ESDP as a way of re-invigorating NATO. It also provided an opportunity to convince some American isolationists that Europe was serious about taking more responsibility for its own security. St Malo thus formalised the UK’s shift towards placing greater tactical emphasis on ESDP as an instrument to maintain its Atlanticist strategy.28 From the UK perspective, ESDP and NATO were thus perfectly compatible: NATO would deal with high-end operations while the EU could conduct smaller, Petersburg Task (June 1992) operations with the help of the Alliance’s structures if NATO as a whole did not want to participate. In this sense, the UK’s emphasis was on pragmatism, that is, while institutional reform was thought


necessary, it was not seen as sufficient. As Robertson quipped in March 1999, ‘Institutional reengineering alone will solve little – you can’t send a wiring diagram to a crisis’.29 The fact that these debates took place while Kosovo was descending into civil war reinforced Robertson’s point and highlighted how far the EU still had to go.

The Kosovo crisis, 1998–99 On 24 March 1999, NATO embarked on what turned out to be a 78-day air campaign known as Operation Allied Force. Its objective was ‘to attack Yugoslav military and security forces and associated facilities with sufficient effect to downgrade its capacity to continue repression of the civilian population’.30 After nearly a decade of avoiding the question of ethnic tension in Kosovo, in 1998 the UK became involved in various diplomatic and coercive initiatives (primarily as part of the International Contact Group with the US, Russia, Germany, France and Italy) to end the escalating conflict between the Serbian government and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). After long negotiations, in October 1998, Belgrade agreed that an international presence could monitor the return of refugees and the implementation of its ceasefire with the KLA. In retrospect, NATO leaders unwisely allowed the agreement to be monitored by an OSCE mission rather than a more robust peacekeeping force.31 Faced with Serbian non-compliance, the OSCE monitors were – not surprisingly – unable to ensure the terms of the agreement and were subsequently withdrawn on the eve of the bombings. On 18 March 1999, the collapse of the negotiations chaired by France and the UK at Rambouillet, Paris, convinced NATO leaders that diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict had been exhausted. According to the US State Department, the triggers for the bombing campaign were Milosevic’s failure to accept a political settlement and breaches of the ceasefire.32 NATO’s decision to go to war was fuelled by a combination of humanitarianism, national interests and geopolitical concerns, which Alex Bellamy has dubbed the ‘Srebrenica’, ‘refugees’ and ‘Balkan wars’ syndromes.33 The first syndrome reflected NATO leaders’ desire to avoid a repeat of the Srebrenica massacre that had occurred in Bosnia in July 1995. In Blair’s terms, unless Milosevic ‘was stopped, Kosovo would share Bosnia’s fate’.34 In contrast, critics of the bombings suggested that any feelings of collective shame NATO states might have possessed about their previous failings in Bosnia manifested into an unhealthy desire to punish the Milosevic regime for its continued misbehaviour.35 The ‘refugees syndrome’ reflected the barely concealed reluctance of


most NATO states to accept large numbers of Kosovan refugees on a potentially long-term basis (Albania and Macedonia bore the brunt of the refugee problem). In comparison to other NATO states, however, the UK proved particularly reluctant to welcome Kosovan refugees.36 Indeed, there was significant tension between Blair’s claims about providing asylum and the Asylum and Immigration Bill that Labour was simultaneously proposing, under the terms of which Kosovans would have been ineligible to come to the UK. The ‘Balkan wars’ syndrome reflected Western geopolitical concerns that the crisis in Kosovo was a threat to international peace and security which was likely to spill across Serbia’s borders into other parts of the Balkans, especially Albania and Macedonia.37 This syndrome helps explain the West’s initial attempts to contain rather than resolve the crisis. With these syndromes in mind, Western governments – with UK spokespersons to the fore – offered four rationales to justify NATO’s intervention. The first was the urgency of the situation. NATO leaders claimed intervention was required immediately to stop Serbian ethnic cleansing and avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe. As George Robertson told MPs, ‘action is taken on behalf of all NATO allies with the aim – the clear, and I believe, justified aim – of averting a humanitarian disaster. … It is to use strategic precision bombing on military targets to reduce his [Milosevic] ability to order the kind of ethnic cleansing that we have seen up to now.’38 A second rationale was said to concern NATO’s credibility. Given NATO’s prior involvement in Bosnia (through Operation Deliberate Force, and its Implementation and Stabilisation Forces) and its attempts to coerce Belgrade during 1998 and early 1999, Alliance credibility was clearly at stake. With Kosovo’s crisis coinciding with NATO’s Fiftieth anniversary and much talk about the Alliance’s future role this issue was given special prominence. Blair made the point explicitly when he suggested, If NATO succeeds, the next time someone tries such a policy and we make a threat it will be credible. Were we to fail – which we will not and must not – the opposite would happen: people would know that, when NATO threatened, it would not be a threat to be taken seriously. That is why people do not talk about NATO’s credibility in some abstract sense; it is a necessary part of building peace and security for the long term.39 A third rationale appealed to the need to stop ethnic cleansing because it constituted an unacceptable affront to Europe’s collective self-image


as a civilised continent. In Blair’s words, NATO’s intervention was ‘a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand. We must not rest until it is reversed.’40 Finally, although NATO used force without explicit UN Security Council authorisation, its leaders argued their actions were in conformity with existing resolutions passed under chapter VII (especially numbers 1160, 1199 and 1203). As Blair noted retrospectively, there had been ‘72 UN resolutions against Milosevic. He will not accept any resolution from anyone unless he knows that the alternative is force.’41 This rationale was subsequently given extra credence by two developments. First, on 26 March a Russian-tabled draft resolution condemning NATO’s intervention and demanding its immediate cessation was rejected by twelve votes to three (Russia, China, Namibia). Although five of the voters were NATO members, seven were not and chose to actively cast their vote in support of its actions.42 Second, under Security Council resolution 1244, the UN was given the leading role in overseeing the administration and reconstruction of the province after the bombing campaign. On the basis of these justifications, NATO embarked on an air campaign designed to achieve three objectives: to reduce Serbia’s military capacity in Kosovo, put pressure on Milosevic to modify or abandon his policies there, and to minimise collateral damage and allied casualties.43 In military terms, the UK played the most important role after the US. As well as providing important air-to-air refuelling facilities, the UK contributed 48 out of 829 aircraft that performed 1618 of the total of 38,004 sorties and released 1011 weapons (including Cruise Missiles, cluster bombs, precision guided munitions and gravity bombs).44 Initially, however, UK contributions were rarely effective: the first four of the Royal Navy’s $1 million cruise missiles missed their targets, apparently because they had been ‘overprogrammed’ and many of the Royal Air Force’s sorties proved ineffective because of engine trouble, low cloud cover, and the inability to find certain targets.45 The UK fared better after the bombing campaign, supplying approximately 10,500 troops to KFOR – including the first commander, General Michael Jackson – and AFOR forces in Macedonia and Albania. In political terms, the UK was also at the forefront of the international campaign to win the propaganda war. UK officials quickly criticised the Clinton administration for explicitly ruling out the use of ground troops at the start of the campaign. This was apparently considered a foolish waste of an important psychological element of the campaign that


would only reinforce Milosevic’s suspicions that NATO could not stomach a protracted campaign or casualties.46 Such criticisms were rather hypocritical, however, given that at the start of the campaign Blair told parliament, ‘We do not plan to use ground troops in order to fight our way into Kosovo … it would take a huge commitment – possibly more than 100,000 ground troops – and that is why we have said that that is not our plan.’47 Moreover, the initial ruling out of a land invasion had been necessary to persuade both reluctant NATO governments (notably Greece and Italy) and a reluctant US Congress to support the air campaign.48 Blair’s government was also unhappy with NATO’s media management of the war. Like its own election campaign, Labour fought the Kosovo war with one eye constantly on public opinion polls both at home and – by late April 1999 – in the US and NATO states more broadly.49 The war saw ministers engaged in a flurry of press conferences and television interviews, writing numerous newspaper articles and making an unusual number of statements in parliament. However, NATO lacked Labour’s well-oiled media machine and was soon struggling to win the propaganda war after a number of mistakes and incoherent statements. On 16 April Blair sent Alastair Campbell, his Director of Communications and Strategy, and a team from the Downing Street press office to NATO to help smarten up its public presentation of the war. Campbell called on his counterparts in Bonn, Paris and Washington to do likewise. The result was the setting up of NATO’s Media Operations Centre and a new regime of twice-daily conference calls for NATO leaders and press spokespersons to coordinate their public messages. This was all done on the assumption that the way the war was presented mattered almost as much as the way it was actually being conducted. As it turned out, this change in process had the desired effect, and support for Blair’s position rose in the domestic opinion polls. Domestically, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both endorsed the need for NATO action in Kosovo, although as the air campaign proceeded growing dissent could be detected from individual MPs, notably within Labour from Tony Benn, Tam Dalyell and George Galloway.50 Within the UK, two main points of contention emerged about NATO’s decision to go to war. First, the marginalisation of the House of Commons, evident in the fact that as Jeremy Corbyn observed, 60 days into the bombing campaign the government had failed to secure a substantive parliamentary vote authorising the air strikes.51


The second major concern was over the legal basis of NATO action. The government’s legal position was summarised by George Robertson in the following terms: We are in no doubt that NATO is acting within international law. Our legal justification rests upon the accepted principle that force may be used in extreme circumstances to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. These circumstances clearly exist in Kosovo. The use of force … can be justified as an exceptional measure in support of the purposes laid down by the UN Security Council, but without the Council’s express authorisation when that is the only means to avert an immediate and overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe.52 The UK’s argument hinged on its claim that states had a limited right to enforce existing UN Security Council resolutions authorised under chapter VII in cases where the use of force was necessary to avert an imminent humanitarian catastrophe. This argument was not accepted by Russia, China or India. As noted above, however, Russia’s attempt to pass a Council resolution calling for the immediate cessation of the bombing failed to secure the requisite votes. The government’s legal case was also rather ambiguously rejected by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which suggested that although NATO states had done ‘all that they could to make the military intervention in Kosovo as compliant with the tenets of international law as possible’, and had made a persuasive moral argument, ‘Operation Allied Force was contrary to the specific terms of what might be termed the basic law of the international community – the UN Charter, although this might have been avoided if the Allies had attempted to use the Uniting for Peace procedures.’ Overall, the Committee concluded that NATO’s actions were of ‘dubious legality in the current state of international law’.53 This position was subsequently echoed by the Independent International Commission on Kosovo (IICK), which concluded that while NATO’s recourse to force was ‘illegal’ it was widely considered morally legitimate within the court of international opinion.54 During the course of Allied Force, NATO was also criticised for the way it conducted the campaign. One set of prudential criticisms challenged the effectiveness of NATO’s bombing. For a start, NATO actually destroyed very little of Serbia’s military machine in Kosovo although it did render a significant number of vehicles inactive by cutting off their fuel supplies.55 It also started to run out of targets, prompting General Charles Guthrie’s warning that NATO’s bombs were ‘turning big craters


into bigger craters and rubble into smaller pieces of rubble’.56 As a result, the type of targets was widened and this, in turn, caused what many felt was excessive damage to Serbia’s industrial, trade and communications infrastructure. In addition, NATO suffered from a number of unintended consequences, not least it significantly underestimated the numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) that would be generated by the combination of the bombing campaign and continued ethnic cleansing by the Serbs.57 A second criticism highlighted the poor correlation between NATO’s high-altitude bombing and its stated humanitarian motives. NATO’s selection of air power as its preferred instrument of armed rescue can be explained by two main factors. First, air power avoids the costs and the risks of committing ground troops; the rationale being that NATO body bags would have rapidly eroded domestic support for the action against Milosevic. Second, NATO’s leaders displayed overconfidence in the ability of air power alone to quickly compel the Milosevic regime to change its behaviour on this important issue. This was partly because they drew the unwarranted conclusion from Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia in 1995 that Milosevic would back down after only a few days of sustained bombing. This conclusion ignored the considerable role that advances by both the Croat and Bosnian armed forces were making at the same time as Deliberate Force. As a result, critics have pointed out that while NATO was not to blame for ethnic cleansing, it provided ‘the cover of war for the ethnic cleansers’ and inflamed their ‘desire to extract revenge against the defenceless Albanians they despised – people who, unlike NATO’s warplanes, were accessible targets’.58 NATO’s air campaign thus failed to deliver the means to protect the Kosovar Albanians on the ground and left NATO leaders open to the charge of exacerbating the very humanitarian disaster that their actions were justified as averting. In sum, NATO faced a series of difficult and imperfect choices given that (1) there was no evidence that the Serbs would have ended the killings and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo without bombing, (2) bombing alone could not protect the local population, and (3) the use of ground troops would in all likelihood result in greater loss of life overall and was considered politically unacceptable by several NATO governments. A third set of complaints focused on NATO’s targeting procedures.59 In particular, critics pointed to ‘collateral damage’ including passenger trains and buses that were hit while crossing bridges and the fact that probably between 400 and 600 civilians were killed and more wounded. Errors were also made in identifying targets, such as the Chinese


embassy, and some weapons went astray (although very few in percentage terms compared to previous bombing campaigns). The situation was not helped by the discovery that the US had been drawing up a second set of targets without telling any of its alliance partners.60 A final cluster of criticisms questioned the actions of NATO states after the war, specifically their failure to prevent the expulsion of Kosovo’s Serbian minority and the way in which the territory’s future status was left in ‘political limbo’.61 Despite these problems opinion polls suggested that overall, NATO’s case for war, if not its methods, proved persuasive with the British public.62 By early June, several factors were increasing the pressure on Milosevic’s regime to sue for peace. First, the air campaign eventually had a significant effect on Belgrade’s calculations. The problem for self-styled humanitarian warriors was what Adam Roberts called the ‘disturbing lesson’ that Allied Force’s ‘most effective aspect involved hurting Serbia proper (including its population and government) rather than directly attacking Serb forces in Kosovo and protecting the Kosovars’.63 Second, by late May, Blair and Robertson had helped convince the Clinton administration that it was necessary to demonstrate ground intervention was a distinct possibility.64 Third, under the cover of NATO bombing, the KLA had been gaining in strength and inflicted a number of damaging attacks upon Milosevic’s forces.65 Finally, Belgrade was waking up to the fact that Russia would not actively support it against NATO but would instead be content to play a political and military role in Kosovo after the war.66 Overall, then, Allied Force generated some very different reactions. For some, NATO’s decision to use force when faced with a Security Council unwilling to enforce its own resolutions declaring the situation in Kosovo a threat to international peace and security met the requirements of ‘good international citizenship’. However, NATO’s use of cluster bombs, its reluctance to use ground troops or conduct operations below 15,000 feet undermined its humanitarian credentials and the effectiveness of its air-strikes against Serbia’s armed forces.67 In contrast, those who view the UK as an ‘outlaw state’ remained convinced that NATO had fought an illegal war, engaged in war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law, and precipitated rather than prevented a humanitarian catastrophe. From this perspective, NATO’s real motives had nothing to do with protecting human rights and everything to do with bolstering its credibility in the post-Cold War era; the related objective of ensuring NATO’s eastward expansion; and the need to organise eastern European economies to benefit Western business. Consequently,


the collapse of the Rambouillet negotiations was entirely predictable as they were little more than a device to legitimise the recourse to war.68 In terms of Labour’s underlying foreign policy commitments, Atlanticism was clearly evident in the strong support for the US-led action. Indeed, at times watching, reading and listening to the media coverage it felt like the UK was playing the lead rather than the supporting role. Kosovo also confirmed Labour’s belief that NATO should remain the premier institution of European security. Consequently, whatever the more ambitious advocates of ESDP might claim, at least for the foreseeable future, it remained reliant upon NATO in general and the US in particular. Multilateralism was also evident. However, NATO’s decision to intervene without explicit Security Council authorisation exemplified Blair’s crusading tendencies and his emphasis on effective multilateralism. Moralism also played a major part in Labour’s response to Kosovo with Blair using the conflict as the springboard to articulate a more general set of criteria for evaluating whether or not the UK should engage in military intervention in what he called ‘other people’s conflicts’ (see Chapter 8). In this sense, Kosovo proved a watershed in Blair’s understanding of the appropriate relationship between the norm of non-intervention and the responsibility of states to protect their own populations. It also had important repercussions for debates about European security.

European security after Kosovo The Kosovo crisis has been described as ‘the critical turning point in post-Cold War European security’.69 However, in some senses, rather than pushing Labour’s foreign policy in dramatically new directions, it confirmed the importance of several choices Blair’s government had already taken, not least the SDR’s call for the UK to develop more force projection and crisis management capabilities. After Kosovo’s crisis, debates about the UK’s approach to European security revolved around three interrelated questions: What lessons should be drawn from Operation Allied Force? And what impact did, first, 9/11 and then the war in Iraq have upon the EU’s attempts to forge a common foreign and security policy complete with military capabilities? Blair’s government appeared to draw at least five lessons for European security from Kosovo’s crisis. First, the EU’s velvet diplomacy required an iron fist capable of coercing opponents such as the Milosevic regime.70 Second, while the tactical use of air power may sometimes be able to deliver immediate objectives, used alone it had considerable


limitations, especially its inability to address underlying political problems.71 This required a political strategy in which ground forces would not just win the war but also ensure the peace afterwards. The third conclusion was that for all the advances on paper, the EU was still reliant upon the US to conduct anything other than minute enforcement operations and for most stability and reconstruction missions. Moreover, even if the EU did not require US troops, it would probably need NATO’s structures and certain US assets, notably intelligence and strategic lift. The fourth conclusion was particularly worrying given the third, namely, as the ground troops issue hinted, US and EU security agendas would not always converge. Finally, events in Kosovo after Allied Force highlighted that despite the considerable investment of resources by NATO, the EU, the UN and the OSCE, constructing and maintaining the sort of liberal, multi-ethnic states favoured by Western governments was a difficult, slow, contested and costly business. Given the Balkans’ historic habit of shaping Europe’s collective destiny Blair’s government judged that stabilising the region was worth the costs. But by mid-1999, it was already clear that the UK was unlikely to devote such significant resources to other parts of the world. Kosovo’s crisis thus added a considerable sense of urgency to developing ESDP. During the final stages of Allied Force, at the Cologne summit of 3–4 June 1999, EU leaders suggested that ESDP should be able to organise and conduct operations for the purposes set out in the St Petersburg Declaration of June 1992, namely, humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping and crisis management. More specific suggestions followed in December 1999 in the form of the Helsinki ‘Headline Goal’. This declared that by 2003 the EU should be capable of deploying a Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) of up to 50,000–60,000 troops to a crisis zone at 60 days notice and have the force remain in theatre for up to one year (once the rotation of personnel was taken into account, this would require a pool of approximately 180,000 soldiers). For some the goal was too conservative, while for others, it was so ambitious as to invite a predictable failure the EU could ill afford.72 Despite being enshrined at the EU Council meeting in Nice in December 2000, and despite having some 1.7 million uniformed personnel, the EU’s 15 members pledged just 67,100 troops (the UK pledged 12,500 ground troops, at that time equivalent to 5.9 per cent of its total ground forces).73 Little had changed by December 2001 when at Laeken, Belgium the Union declared its military capacity ‘operational’. By 2001, therefore, the balance sheet on the Union’s ostensibly common foreign and security policy was distinctly mixed. While the EU’s


members had built up a reasonable track-record of common positions on such issues as the Israel–Palestine conflict or India–Pakistan relations, in other areas, common positions were notable for their absence. Several African issues, for instance, highlighted the lack of common ground within the Union (see Chapter 4). In 2000, France declined the UK’s request for assistance in Sierra Leone and three years later, France was working alone on the ground to stabilise Côte d’Ivoire. Similarly, between 1998 and 2001, the UK and France spent much time arguing over the appropriate way to treat Charles Taylor’s regime in Liberia. And then came 9/11. In responding to the initial shock of the attacks, the EU displayed some ‘striking solidarity’, especially in its ability to link foreign policy, anti-terrorist measures and Justice and Home Affairs issues.74 However, while both the CFSP and ESDP survived the political fallout from 9/11, they were influenced by it. Above all, 9/11 ensured that defeating terrorism became the UK’s number one foreign policy priority – although at times it seemed like the UK was more concerned with killing or capturing terrorists than reducing the likelihood of future terrorism (see Chapters 2 and 6). Consequently, although Blair’s government remained supportive of ESDP, the post-9/11 broadening of its foreign policy horizons beyond Europe meant that it slipped down the list of priorities. This, in turn, made the ‘constructive ambiguity’ evident at St Malo harder to sustain, especially as the UK quickly indicated that NATO not the EU would serve as the primary military instrument in the ‘war on terrorism’. This was confirmed at the Prague Summit in November 2002 when the Alliance announced it would establish a Response Force (NRF).75 This stance also provided a rationale for UK support for further NATO enlargement since candidate states could bolster its political, if not its military, credentials (see also Chapter 6).76 The major initial difficulty with this approach was Washington’s sidelining of NATO in the campaign to dislodge the Taliban/al-Qa’ida regime in Afghanistan. In Washington’s own version of effective multilateralism, the US Secretary of Defence declared his preference for fighting terrorism using ad hoc coalitions of the willing defined by the specific mission at hand.77 Compared to NATO, the EU remained untested in the military sphere and certainly incapable of conducting the sort of enforcement operations required in Afghanistan. For the UK, the EU’s role in the ‘war on terrorism’ should concentrate on its relative strengths in development aid and diplomacy to prevent so-called ‘failed states’ becoming havens for terrorists.78 Nevertheless, the Union’s ‘big three’ (UK, France, Germany) quickly began formulating their own response rather than waiting for the Belgian Presidency to respond on their


behalf.79 This convergence came under severe strain, however, as the issue of Iraq climbed higher up the UK’s foreign policy agenda. The EU could not plausibly claim to have forged a CFSP on Iraq since France withdrew from the northern and southern no-fly-zones in 1996 and 1998 respectively. Indeed, despite holding the EU presidency at the time, Blair’s government barely consulted the EU over the decision to launch Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. Yet for several reasons, the diplomatic tensions over the Iraq war had a more cathartic effect on ESDP.80 First, the combined effects of 9/11 and the Iraq war convinced some previously sceptical states (including Norway, Sweden and Finland) of the merits of ESDP.81 Second, the crisis helped resolve some of the ambiguities over ESDP in the UK’s favour by discrediting ‘some of the more unrealistic ambitions held for it’.82 Just over a month after the invasion of Iraq, Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg held what was cruelly dubbed the ‘chocolate summit’ to reinvigorate ESDP.83 They proposed that within a year the EU should establish a permanent military planning headquarters at Tervuren, Brussels. By September 2003, Blair had agreed to the principle if not the detail, prompting an angry response from the US ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, who suggested such developments represented the ‘most serious threat to the future of NATO’.84 Burns’ comment revealed how Washington’s view of ESDP had changed from (Clinton’s administration) seeing it as a way of reviving NATO to (Bush’s administration) suggesting it posed a threat to the Alliance. Despite Washington’s reservations, at the Naples summit (28–29 November 2003), the EU agreed to establish a permanent strategic planning cell in Brussels. This would have a staff of about 30 personnel and – in a victory for the UK vision of ESDP – a SHAPE liaison mission attached to it. It thus resembled a capacity to generate an operations centre for a specific task rather than the more ambitious permanent headquarters planned at the ‘chocolate summit’.85 The favourable reactions to the battle-group concept first raised in the Franco-British summit in London on 24 November 2003 also suggested the downsizing of (especially French) expectations about ESDP. Battle-groups would consist of some 1500 troops capable of being deployed within 15 days on missions of up to a month, and of operating under a UN mandate. The plan was to have them operational by 2007. The third effect of the Iraq crisis was to highlight that in several respects the key difference between the UK and France was over means not ends, namely, how best to engage with and potentially influence US power in the tense political atmosphere post-9/11. Here both the UK and France drew criticism: at times, Blair’s attempt at partnership with


the US looked like sycophancy, while Chirac’s ostensibly principled position in the Security Council only served to divide the EU into largely superficial pro- and anti-US camps.86 As in Bosnia where the UK and France ended up working closely together, the Bush administration’s apparent desire to downsize its troop commitments to Europe in light of the war in Iraq made the EU’s contribution in the Balkans more important than ever.87 Despite NATO’s status as the most favoured organisation in the ‘war on terrorism’ and the tensions over Iraq, by the end of 2002 there was also good reason to expect that ESDP would soon show some concrete results. Most notably, perhaps, the EU and NATO resolved the objections made by first Turkey and then Greece over the ‘Berlin-plus’ arrangements whereby the Union would be able to borrow assets from the US in order to conduct its own operations. Consequently, during 2003 ESDP took its first practical steps. The UK, preoccupied with Iraq, did not play a leading role in any of these. The first operation was the EU Police Mission (EUPM) in Bosnia, which focused on refugee return, security and combating organised crime. Deployed in January 2003 with a three-year mandate this operation involved some 500 international police officers and is widely considered a modest success.88 The second operation, in Macedonia, proved more controversial.89 The EU had announced its willingness to take over from the 800-strong NATO mission in Macedonia in June 2002 at the Seville European Council meeting. However, despite French and Belgium enthusiasm for a quick changeover, at the European Council meeting of 24–25 October the UK initially vetoed any EU deployment arguing that the Union was not ready for such a potentially difficult operation. This prompted a failed attempt by President Chirac to block the extension of the NATO force’s mandate. With France acting as Framework Nation, the EU’s Operation Concordia finally deployed approximately 250 troops from 27 states to Macedonia on 31 March. No British troops participated although three UK personnel were seconded to its headquarters. Concordia subsequently withdrew on 15 December 2003 to be replaced by the Union’s civilian police mission, Operation Proxima. Meanwhile, between June and September 2003, the French-led Operation Artemis deployed approximately 1500 troops (including just under 100 British military engineers) to eastern DRC. Although it provided little more than a temporary palliative for the residents of the stricken town of Bunia, this was the first EU mission deployed outside Europe and the first to operate without NATO assets. In January 2005, the EU sent a small civilian police force to the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa to


help train local security personnel to guard the state installations. In this sense, ESDP’s first significant steps were made during (and immediately after) the Iraq crisis. The need to build on these advances – and to prove to Washington that the EU was capable of projecting military power beyond its borders – was formalised in December 2003 with the publication of the European Security Strategy, A Secure Europe in a Better World.90 This document confirmed the victory of the UK’s vision of ESDP, particularly in the greater emphasis placed on NATO and the relationship with the US between the document’s first and final drafts.91 In short, while ESDP had its uses, as Chapter 6 confirms, defending the realm was not one of them. Instead, for Labour, ESDP was a shift in tactics rather than strategy. In particular, the emphasis was on developing flexible multilateral mechanisms that would allow the EU to effectively respond to mediumto small-scale crises in its own backyard. The process had begun before Kosovo’s crisis erupted and in this sense the ethnic cleansing did not require a completely new way of thinking. Rather it added a greater sense of urgency to Labour’s ongoing diplomacy. But ESDP was not solely fixated with Europe. As part of a wider debate about foreign policy, especially how to relate the UK’s security and defence policies to the projection of the EU’s values, it was not surprising that ESDP began to look beyond Europe’s borders. Perhaps given Blair’s developing interest in Africa and a long history of French military operations on the continent, it was not surprising that the two leading players in ESDP began to see its potential in that part of the world and to plan operational scenarios accordingly. But as the following chapter demonstrates, ESDP was to play only a bit part in Labour’s relationship with Africa.

4 Healing a Scar on the World’s Conscience?

With Labour’s election to office, African affairs rose considerably higher up the UK’s list of foreign policy priorities.1 This trend was reinforced in the aftermath of 9/11 when Blair signalled his support for the NEPAD and argued that something had to be done to heal a continent that had become ‘a scar on the conscience of the world’.2 In economic terms, after the G-8 summit in Kananaskis in June 2002, Blair committed his government to spending £1 billion on development aid to Africa by 2006. Nearly two years later, in February 2004, Blair launched a 17 member Commission for Africa tasked with taking ‘a fresh look at Africa’s past and present, and the international community’s role, in order to agree clear recommendations for the future’. The Commission published its report, Our Common Interest in March 2005. Why Labour devoted so much attention to Africa was the source of considerable debate. One suggestion was that as a prime minister relatively inexperienced in foreign affairs, Blair’s most trusted foreign policy advisers, especially Jonathan Powell and David Manning, were instrumental in shaping his priorities to include Africa.3 Others saw political opportunism at work: after initially paying scant attention to Africa, Blair began taking an interest in the continent’s woes after hearing persistent praise for the work of Clare Short and DFID on the international conference circuit. A third explanation emphasised the advice US President Bill Clinton had offered Blair over dinner at Chequers in December 2000. Bill apparently advised Tony to make Africa a bigger priority and build a strong relationship with George W. Bush’s incoming administration.4 Then there were events in Africa themselves. Wars, famine, poverty, debt, disease and dictatorship were widespread in Africa at the turn of the millennium and the continent stood out as arguably the single most important crucible for testing Labour’s 75


commitment to its stated ethical priorities. Blair’s decision to devote more attention to Africa was also made easier by the series of initiatives put forward by a small group of African leaders that culminated in the NEPAD. These projects signalled to Blair that there were like-minded African statesmen with whom he could work to achieve their shared objectives. But for all the talk of commitment, the UK’s engagement with Africa remained selective and sometimes selfish, based on similar principles to the previous Conservative governments, and often wrapped rather unconvincingly in the language of security threats rather than human solidarity and development.5 This is not to ignore some constructive developments but to paraphrase Blair, while a good deal was achieved much more remained to be done. Labour’s attempts to achieve its foreign policy objectives in Africa need to be understood within the wider political and economic trends that have shaped the continent’s international relations over the last 25 years. Four factors were particularly important.6 First, since the introduction of structural adjustment policies (usually thought to coincide with the release of the World Bank’s report, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, in 1981), most African governments have not had complete control of their national economies. Although not the only cause of problems, most African economies have been in a state of ‘permanent crisis’ ever since.7 Second, after the Cold War, Western states and the international financial institutions they dominate also imposed more explicitly political conditionalities that required African regimes to conform to the World Bank’s standard of ‘good governance’ (roughly synonymous with the elements necessary to build liberal market democracies). Because of their dependency upon foreign sources of finance, many African regimes responded by adopting (often largely cosmetic)8 multiparty constitutions and holding elections that were monitored to greater or lesser degrees by a variety of external actors and institutions.9 The third important factor was the neopatrimonial nature of many African regimes. As Nicolas van de Walle, amongst others, has persuasively shown, the story of most African states can be interpreted as revolving around a struggle for power and survival that marginalised all other concerns, including national development.10 Neopatrimonial regimes commonly exhibit four characteristics. First, they display ‘the more or less systematic resort to clientalism to gain and maintain political support’. In other words, ‘political authority in Africa is [often] based on the giving and gaining of favors in an endless series of dyadic exchanges that go from the village level to the highest reaches of the central state’.11 Second, this clientalism is ‘largely based on privileged

Healing a Scar on the World’s Conscience? 77

access to state resources, rationed by leaders following a strict political logic’. As a result, the boundary between the public and private spheres is extremely blurred. Within this context, the third characteristic is the centralisation of power usually around the presidency, which, in turn, is usually located within the capital city. Finally, neopatrimonial states house hybrid regimes wherein the informal mechanisms of political authority ‘coexist with the formal trappings of the modern state’ such as a bureaucracy, written laws and the institutions of a Weberian legalrational system. These regimes are hybrids because the governing elites rely upon the trappings of a rational-legal order even as they consistently subvert it for their own advantage. Daily government thus resembles a balancing act to maintain a degree of political stability by satiating the regime’s supporters and weakening its opponents. Since the end of the Cold War, those regimes that failed to persuade their external creditors of their committment to democratic reform saw their external funding channels dry up, making their balancing act even harder. The final contextual factor is that the political actors prominent in Africa’s international relations do not always conform to the conventional distinctions between state and non-state actors that form one of the foundations of the academic discipline of International Relations.12 As Christopher Clapham has pointed out, in a continent where some socalled ‘states’ have consistently behaved like warlords, while some insurgencies have exhibited the attributes of statehood, ‘the dividing line between “states” and “non-states” has become so blurred as to be virtually imperceptible’.13 As a result, perhaps more than any other continent, Africa consists ‘of a mass of power structures which, regardless of formal designation, enjoy greater or lesser degrees of statehood’.14 Within this context, Labour’s attempts to promote its three key objectives of peace, prosperity and democracy must be seen as an incredibly complex and difficult – even naïve – undertaking. Accordingly, the majority of this chapter analyses Labour’s efforts to promote these values in Africa. The final section discusses the UK’s approach to the NEPAD as the current framework within which Blair’s government engaged with African issues. Not surprisingly, I suggest that Labour’s Africa policies met with mixed results and were plagued by several tensions and contradictions. First, while Labour’s strategy was based on persuading African states to adopt ‘good governance’ policies, it underestimated the extent to which the continent’s states had collapsed leaving few, if any, institutions able to implement such policies. The problem was therefore not one of persuading states to adopt ‘good governance’ but the far bigger proposition of creating effective modern


states, often from scratch.15 Second, by relying upon African elites to implement reform in a top-down manner, Labour underestimated the power of neopatrimonial logic and structures. Instead, arguably the best chance of constructing effective and responsible states will come from the bottom-up, although this will require outsiders to channel more resources to support groups within civil society committed to human rights, participatory democracy and the rule of law. Third, by persisting in pushing neopatrimonial regimes to adopt neoliberal economic policies, Labour helped produce some very illiberal results.16 Finally, while in military terms and at least in the short-term, Labour was able to affect the course of some of Africa’s smaller wars, as demonstrated by the case of Sierra Leone, politically, it remained relatively powerless to reform neopatrimonial regimes, as demonstrated by its inability to change Mugabe’s policies in Zimbabwe. Less than a year into Labour’s first term, Christopher Clapham concluded that this lack of leverage, combined with the West’s unwillingness to allocate the necessary levels of resources and its underlying uneasiness about the ethical implications of trying to remake Africa according to its own blueprints, meant that the central objectives of the project to reconstruct the continent from outside ‘have not been, and cannot be, achieved’.17 Seven years on, arguably little had changed. All Labour’s foreign policy commitments were evident in its Africa policies. In contrast to several other parts of the world, however, Atlanticism exerted little effect upon the UK’s Africa policies. While the UK and US shared broadly similar diagnoses of Africa’s predicament and generally agreed on the most appropriate prescriptions, Blair’s government consistently pushed first Clinton and then Bush to accord African issues greater attention and resources. Multilateralism was also evident, although, once again, Labour was pragmatic, promoting what it saw as the most effective forms of multilateralism for the issue in question. The UK thus looked to a variety of institutions (especially the UN, EU, G-7/8 and the Commonwealth) as well as to more informal partnerships (exemplified by the NEPAD) to gain leverage for its preferred policies. Until 2003 and Operation Artemis (see Chapter 3), it was noticeable how little impact the EU’s CFSP had upon the African policies of the UK and France with the two states adopting very different policies on several issues. Neoliberalism was also clearly apparent, particularly in Labour’s policies on debt relief and its desire to promote ‘good governance’, which was defined in broadly neoliberal terms. But liberal commitments also implicitly underpinned the UK’s approach to peacebuilding and conflict resolution. In relation to African affairs, Labour’s neoliberalism


sat uncomfortably with neopatrimonial regimes and its unwillingness to substantially alter the international terms of trade and open up the UK’s own markets to African traders. Finally, moralism played a crucial role in Labour’s Africa policies, not least because its commitment to ‘healing’ the continent represented arguably the acid test of its liberal internationalist values. After 9/11, however, the government rather unconvincingly wrapped its reasons for engaging in Africa in the language of security and preventing terrorism and ‘failed states’.

Promoting peace? Conflict management, resolution and prevention were the stated priorities of Labour’s Africa policies. Like its predecessors, however, Blair’s government was predominantly reactive although more attention was devoted to preventing future wars via the Conflict Prevention Pools established in 2001 (see later in the chapter). Labour’s approach was also highly selective both in its attempts to support peacekeeping in Africa and in the wars it sought to help manage. Far more attention and resources were devoted to the wars in Angola, Sierra Leone, and the Sudan than those in, for instance, Algeria, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC and Somalia.18 The Labour government’s understanding of the continent’s wars was most clearly set out in a 2001 document entitled The Causes of Conflict in Africa, co-written by DFID, the FCO and the MOD. This defined the root causes of post-Cold War African conflicts as inequality between groups, economic decline, state collapse and a history of resolving problems violently. However, the government’s analysis drew criticism for containing little that was innovative; ignoring the globalised nature of war in Africa; analysing the continent as if it was somehow disconnected from the rest of the world and in a permanent state of crisis; and for generating inflated expectations about what the UK could ‘deliver’.19 Nevertheless, the document made the important point that ending Africa’s wars would require policies operative on several levels and across multiple sectors, including small arms and light weapons controls; security sector reform; responsible investment practices in conflict zones; reducing mineral exploitation for the purposes of war; promoting inclusive forms of government; assisting Africa’s regional organisations, especially in relation to peacekeeping capacity (see later in the chapter); and using targeted sanctions regimes, including travel bans, financial sanctions against elites fuelling conflicts and boycotts of conflict trade goods such as oil, timber and diamonds. An important example of such


sanctions came in Liberia when evidence presented by Robin Cook of Charles Taylor’s support for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone and other insurgent groups in the region was instrumental in getting EU ministers to agree to freeze a two-year development aid programme for Liberia in 1998. Later, the UK was instrumental in imposing UN sanctions on Taylor’s regime, which included a ban on the import of rough diamonds from the country. Although authorised in March 2001, France and several West African states delayed their imposition for two months until May, much to the British government’s annoyance.20 With regard to peacekeeping, the UK concentrated on funding, training and equipping African peacekeepers rather than committing its own soldiers to operations on the continent. In 1996, the UK had established the African Peacekeeping Training Support Programme with an annual budget of roughly $4 million.21 In late May 1997, the Programme was integrated into the so-called P3 initiative (with the US and France). This aimed to coordinate external attempts to enhance African peacekeeping capabilities and promote ‘interoperable capacity’ to conduct peace support operations. The UK’s component focused primarily on officer level ‘training the trainer’ programmes, through the British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT) West Africa (based in Ghana), BMATT Southern Africa (originally based in Zimbabwe but subsequently withdrawn in protest at President Mugabe’s policies), and BMATT East Africa (based in Uganda). The UK also had military liaison officers based in Angola, Ethiopia and Mauritius. According to one UK diplomat involved in the P3 initiative, it was not ‘a prelude to Western disengagement from African peacekeeping’.22 This is precisely what happened, however, with the UK providing only symbolic contingents for UN peace operations on the continent. By March 2005, for instance, only 29 UK soldiers were serving in the UN’s eight peace operations in Africa: five in the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), three in UNMIL in Liberia, 19 in UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone, and two in UNMIS in Sudan. Instead of troops, the UK focused on providing infrastructural support, equipment and training.23 This included £3.7 million to fund Mozambique’s contingent to the African Union’s Mission in Burundi (AMIB) for its first 60 days during 2003 (plus a further £2 million to the AU administered Trust Fund), and approximately £2 million and £1 million to the UN peace operations in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) and Liberia (UNMIL) respectively. This approach was consistent with EU, US and French policy and at a time when the latter two states were accused of cutting their engagement


with Africa, Labour increased the relevant budgets, most notably DFID’s security sector reform programme and the MOD’s defence diplomacy activities. When UK troops were deployed to Africa they usually operated outside formal UN command structures as in both Sierra Leone (2000) and the DRC as part of the French-led Operation Artemis (2003).24 The problem was that this approach ran contrary to the UN Charter’s spirit of finding internationalist as opposed to regional solutions to the breakdown of peace and security and was tantamount to leaving the continent most plagued by war but equipped with only modest peacekeeping capabilities to fend largely for itself. As well as peacekeeping, Labour also engaged in several different approaches to conflict resolution ranging from diplomatic mediation to unilateral intervention (see also Chapter 8). These differences were evident in UK policies towards the wars in Sudan, Angola and Sierra Leone. In Sudan, the UK engaged in diplomatic mediation, in part through the negotiating secretariat in Nairobi it helped fund. Rather unusually, the government endorsed the idea of a referendum on southern selfdetermination as a way of resolving the war between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). However, despite the work of the UK’s Special Representative Alan Goulty (as part of the informal Troika with the US and Norway), the UK had only a limited impact on the course of the war. Although Britain had potentially significant economic (oil) and strategic (terrorism) interests in Sudan, it was US carrots and sticks that pushed the Machakos/ Naivasha peace process forward.25 On the positive side, the UK recognised the limits of paper agreements and that neither the government of Sudan nor the SPLM/A could achieve all their demands. In addition, by 2004, the US and UK had prepared the diplomatic ground within the UN Security Council for a possible peacekeeping force to monitor the envisaged Naivasha agreement26 in southern Sudan. This was subsequently established in March 2005 under Security Council resolution 1590. Yet significant obstacles to stable peace remained. Above all, the Machakos/Naivasha process was predicated on a simplistic north–south dichotomy that obscured the complexity of Sudan’s multiple, interlocking civil wars. This became dramatically apparent in the western province of Darfur where in response to an insurgency by two rebel groups in February 2003, President al-Bashir’s government armed the socalled janjaweed militias and engaged in a brutal campaign against both the rebels and local civilians. Although accurate statistics were impossible to compile, the UK International Development Committee


estimated that by March 2005 the conflict was responsible for around 300,000 deaths, 1.84 million internally displaced persons, 200,000 refugees, and for rendering some 2.4 million people dependent upon humanitarian assistance.27 Despite having available capacity, Blair’s government was not prepared to intervene militarily in Darfur’s crisis.28 Other sticking points included the lack of civil society input into the Machakos/Naivasha peace process, power-sharing structures proved difficult to clarify, and the status of the disputed areas of Abyei, the Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile. In Sudan, therefore, the UK’s mediation had little serious leverage over the belligerents. In contrast, after years of the Conservatives adopting a neutral stance towards the two sides in Angola’s civil war and turning a blind eye to Jonas Savimbi’s close relations to the head of Lonrho, Tiny Rowland, Blair’s government was keen to isolate and defeat Savimbi’s National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) movement. This included vocal denunciations – usually from FCO minister Peter Hain – depicting Savimbi as a war criminal who was ‘as slippery as a snake’, expelling UNITA’s representative from the UK, supporting Namibia’s role against UNITA, and pushing for sanctions that would restrict Savimbi’s ability to finance his war effort by exporting oil and diamonds.29 While Savimbi’s UNITA deserved the criticism, the UK’s stance left little room to point out the significant shortcomings of President Dos Santos’ corrupt and authoritarian regime. As Angola’s civil war ground to a halt after Savimbi’s death in February 2002, the country slipped down the UK’s list of priorities.30 Labour’s most sustained attempts to promote peace in Africa came in Sierra Leone where the UK eventually played a crucial role in ending the civil war that erupted in 1991. In 1997–98 Blair’s government was embroiled in controversy over the so-called ‘Arms-to-Africa’ affair in which the FCO colluded with the military consultancy firm Sandline International to bring 30 tonnes of arms and ammunition into Sierra Leone in contravention of a UN arms embargo which the UK had drafted.31 Annoyed at Cook’s inability to limit the negative publicity, Blair sought to defuse what he called ‘an overblown hoo-hah’ by giving deposed President Kabbah his unequivocal support.32 Blair also suggested that the ends (returning an elected president to power) justified the means (turning a blind eye to private efforts to supply Kabbah’s forces with the arms necessary to defeat the murderous rebels).33 Although the UK – along with the US and EU – had backed President Kabbah, it was initially unwilling to ensure the military defeat of the RUF rebels. Instead, the UK helped persuade Kabbah to sign the Lomé


Accord on 7 July 1999 – the tragically flawed result of failing to defeat the RUF militarily. The Accord sacrificed justice on the altar of (temporary) peace and treated the RUF leaders as partners in a coalition government rather than as the primary obstacle to long-term peace in the country. When in early 2000, Nigerian forces that had been in the country as part of the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) since 1997 were replaced by UN peacekeepers, the RUF renewed their march towards Freetown, murdered several UN soldiers and kidnapped approximately 500 others. In response, from early May 2000, Blair’s government deployed approximately 1300 troops to Sierra Leone as part of Operation Palliser. Within six weeks the majority of these soldiers were withdrawn and a smaller contingent of approximately 200 left behind to train an accountable and effective Sierra Leone army. In tandem with the UN peacekeeping force UNAMSIL, the new army would help restore order to the country. In October, the UK deployed another naval task force (comprising approximately 650 personnel) to Sierra Leone to bolster the beleaguered UN force and signalled its commitment to deploy a further rapid reaction force of up to 5000 troops if required.34 The immediate justification for the intervention was military intelligence from the UK’s 15-man ‘technical assistance’ team in Sierra Leone and what The Guardian newspaper described as a ‘panic-stricken report’ from the UN claiming that the capital, Freetown, was once again poised to fall to rebel RUF forces as it had in January 1999.35 However, the underlying motives behind the intervention were mixed and more complex and reflected Blair’s developing thoughts on the issue of humanitarian intervention (see Chapter 8). They included the protection of UK citizens, averting a humanitarian crisis, defending democracy, supporting President Kabbah (especially after the ‘Arms-to-Africa’ affair) and supporting UNAMSIL and the future credibility of UN peace operations, particularly in Africa.36 The operation also served as a good example of the kind of focused, expeditionary intervention envisaged in the SDR (see Chapter 6). Initially, Operation Palliser went smoothly with the troops securing Lungi airport and evacuating UK citizens and others to whom Britain had consular responsibility. On 17 May, however, British and Nigerian troops killed an undisclosed number of rebels about 20 miles from Lungi airport. This incident sparked a series of debates not only about the risk to British soldiers but also about the nature of their mandate in Sierra Leone.37 The next serious incident concerned the capture of 11 British soldiers and a Sierra Leonean liaison officer by a group calling itself the


West Side Boys. After negotiations to release the captive troops collapsed, a rescue mission, Operation Barras, was launched on 10 September. This succeeded in rescuing the hostages but resulted in the death of one British soldier and many rebels.38 Although there were calls, most notably from the Conservative party, for British troops to withdraw following this incident, the contingent was instead scaled down as the situation in and around Freetown stabilised. Crucially, Operation Barras signalled that British troops could not be treated with the same degree of contempt as UN personnel and arguably represented the crucial turning point in the civil war where the combined government, UN and British forces gained the psychological upper hand over the rebels. In terms of operational effectiveness, the UK achieved its stated objectives. The initial goal of evacuating approximately 500 UK citizens was achieved by securing the area around Freetown, including Lungi airport. The mission was then broadened to include assisting the deployment of further UNAMSIL personnel. This was also achieved with only minor instances of actual combat. The UK’s broader political strategy had three elements: to train and equip the government of Sierra Leone with an effective and accountable army; to restore momentum to the peace process, specifically by supporting an expanded UNAMSIL and funding the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process; and to reduce the incentives that the illicit trade in diamonds had provided for the violence. Significant progress was made in all these areas. Crucially, the RUF was first contained and then, following Operation Barras, significantly weakened as a military force; in May 2001 UN sanctions were imposed on Charles Taylor’s regime in Liberia to prevent the RUF funding its activities through illicit diamond trading; and the war was declared officially over in January 2002. Arguably the major difficulty was trying to build stable peace in Sierra Leone amidst what The Economist described as ‘a region in flames’.39 Apart from efforts to curb the trade in conflict diamonds, British operations paid little attention to violence beyond Sierra Leone – stoked in significant part by Taylor’s forces – which engulfed Liberia, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. After the war, Sierra Leone became a laboratory for a variety of peacebuilding techniques, most notably, security sector reform (where the UK was instrumental in training and equipping the new army and police force), judicial reform (including the establishment of a reconciliation commission and special court, largely under US auspices), and building governance structures to address people’s basic needs (with DFID playing the leading role). While generally welcomed by most observers, the


UK’s peacebuilding efforts were criticised on several counts. First, questions were raised about whether Sierra Leone really needed a professional army and whether overseeing two–three years of national service might produce better long-term results.40 Second, doubts were raised about the importance of, and the amount of money being spent on, the reconciliation commission and special court (which indicted only 13 individuals, two of whom died before they could be tried) rather than fulfilling the basic needs of the local population, especially those living outside Freetown.41 Third, the UK – unlike the US – proved reluctant to speak out against Kabbah’s own rather poor record on human rights and corruption with critics questioning his ability and desire to dismantle the patronage networks upon which his own power rested.42 The final element of the UK’s attempts to promote peace in Africa was to prevent violent conflict before it broke out. Here, Labour emphasised five areas for action: addressing the root causes of conflict by fighting poverty and promoting sustainable development; supporting forms of governance that had the consent of local people; curbing the flow of small arms and light weapons; preventing the trade of conflict goods; and countering the ‘culture of impunity’ for those who break international humanitarian law.43 DFID played a particularly important part in developing this approach and also had significant input into the wider OECD strategies for preventing violent conflict (see Chapter 7). In practical terms, the culmination of Labour’s efforts in this area was the creation of the Africa Conflict Prevention Pool. A fund of approximately £50 million per annum drawn from the budgets of the FCO, MOD and DFID, this became formally active in spring 2001 and was initially set to operate until 2004.44 The Africa Pool emerged from a DFID initiative to improve the effectiveness and value for money of the government’s approach to conflict prevention in Africa. However, although the proposal secured Treasury approval, it generated considerable resentment within the FCO, which promptly argued for a second pool to be established covering the rest of the world. Despite these early squabbles and some other shortcomings, the Africa Pool did enhance the UK’s capability to help prevent conflicts on the continent, notably in Sierra Leone and Sudan.45 In addition, in early 2003, four regional conflict advisers (paid for out of the Pool’s budget) were created. Operating out of Pretoria (southern), Addis Ababa (eastern), Nairobi (central) and Abuja (western), they monitored their region, provided London with up-to-date analysis of events in states where there was no official UK presence, and helped regional teams enhance their conflict prevention activities. Although they reportedly


encountered some difficulties in transcending the different bureaucratic cultures in DFID, the FCO and the MOD, the advisers were a concrete, if relatively minor, example of the government’s recognition that African conflicts were transnational and often required regional rather than just national solutions. Arguably the major contradiction in Labour’s attempts to promote peace was its own record on exporting arms to Africa (see also Chapter 6). In 1999, for instance, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade pointed to 970 individual export licenses the UK government granted in the Small Arms category, including exports to Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.46 The same organisation also claimed that between 1997 and 2001, Labour licensed arms and military equipment to several African states engaged in conflict, including Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zimbabwe.47 Similarly, like its predecessors, Blair’s government continued to aggressively court South African arms contracts;48 BAE Systems and other UK businessmen were alleged to have supplied spare parts for Zimbabwe’s fleet of Hawk jets and other material while over 12,000 of Mugabe’s troops waged war (and consolidated substantial business interests) in the DRC;49 and UKmade weapons found their way (albeit indirectly) into the hands of child soldiers fighting in Sierra Leone’s war.50

Promoting prosperity? Like its Conservative predecessors, and despite claims it had adopted a third way between old-style socialism and new right economics, Labour subscribed to liberal assumptions about the relationship between economics and politics, and the ostensibly mutually beneficial nature of international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) (see Chapter 5). Blair’s government promoted these principles in Africa by working in tandem with some of the UK’s major corporations conducting business on the continent, including Unilever, ICI, British Petroleum, Marconi, and UK banks such as Standard Chartered and Barclays. After June 1999, these activities were coordinated through British Trade International, renamed UK Trade and Investment in late 2003 (see Chapter 5). However, endorsing liberal diagnoses of and prescriptions for Africa’s underdevelopment left Labour with little space to criticise the negative social consequences of economic liberalism (rising unemployment, job insecurity, inequality and poverty levels) in states such as Zambia and South Africa.51 Indeed, Blair was so impressed with South Africa’s controversial and fervently neoliberal Growth, Employment and


Redistribution policy that he dubbed it the ‘Third Way, South Africa style’.52 Similarly, Labour’s support for privatisation as part of restructuring African economies often encouraged corrupt elites to buy state companies – many of which they had already plundered – for ludicrously small prices and further reduced the scope for neopatrimonial regimes to provide jobs for their supporters within the civil service. The main planks of Labour’s policy involved providing development aid, promoting free trade, encouraging profitable FDI, and reducing the burden of debt. In contrast to wider international trends, Labour steadily increased the volume of UK development aid to Africa.53 With few exceptions, however, UK aid continued to flow to traditional recipients and came with liberal strings attached (a trend that NEPAD’s concept of enhanced partnership states looks set to continue, see later in the chapter). In Africa, with the blessing of both Blair and Gordon Brown, DFID prioritised increasing the quantity and quality of UK development aid and improving policy coherence. And perhaps surprisingly given that most of the world’s poor people live in Asia, between 1998 and 2003 DFID consistently spent approximately 50 per cent of its increasing budget on Africa, more than any other single region. In statistical terms, whereas in 1998–99 DFID spent £446 million out of a total of £958 million allocable by region on Africa, by 2002–03 the figure had risen to £750 million out of a total of £1493 million.54 In addition, the 2002 Comprehensive Spending Review approved the extra funds required to achieve Blair’s commitment of spending £1 billion on Africa by 2006. Currently, DFID’s programmes are focused on 16 African states, the largest five recipients in 2002–03 being Tanzania (£96 million), Ghana (£56 million), Uganda (£55 million), Malawi (£52 million), and Kenya (£45 million) – none of which could be classed as among Africa’s poorest states.55 After initially distributing significant portions of aid through nongovernmental channels, Labour subsequently reverted to disbursing aid through African states. Several justifications were given for this approach. First, Clare Short frequently criticised NGOs as being unelected and economically illiterate whingers.56 Second, DFID was apparently unable to find enough NGO projects worthy of funding. In 2000–01, for instance, £18 million of DFID’s Africa budget was unallocated.57 Third, Short complained that even worthy projects could provide only short-term palliatives in areas without competent states. ‘It’s pointless’, Short argued, ‘pouring money into a local project in a state that is going the wrong way. … Let’s stop using aid for nice wellmeaning projects and let’s use it to create a competent state.’58 Since


then, most government funding of NGOs was given to short-term emergency projects. But the states-first approach was not without its problems. First, the UK’s selectivity meant the amount of aid going to the states most in need was often very small. For example, in 2002–03 DFID gave more money to the Adam Smith Institute in London (£8.8 million) than to Burundi (£1.9 million), Côte d’Ivoire (£1.2 million), Liberia (£1.7 million) and Somalia (£3.1 million) combined.59 Second, even those African regimes that Labour saw as enlightened – including those in Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda – displayed neopatrimonial tendencies, questionable priorities in their allocation of state resources and scant regard for the human rights of their internal opponents. Third, most of the poverty alleviation projects receiving DFID funding were written by the international financial institutions and suffered from many of the shortcomings of the previous structural adjustment programmes, including that African states still do not ‘own’ their national development policies.60 Admittedly when dealing with neopatrimonial regimes, ‘ownership’ of supposedly national development policy was unlikely to produce benefits for all citizens but helping states to become liberal market democracies is a very different project than leaving them no choice in the matter. In sum, UK aid did not reach many of Africa’s poorest citizens and remained susceptible to familiar commercial and political considerations. As noted below, there was also evidence that following liberal principles might not offer the best antidote to poverty and underdevelopment (see also Chapter 7). In spite of frequent statements espousing the virtues of international free trade, in relation to Africa the G-8 states rarely practiced what they preached. Not surprisingly, this stance generated persistent criticism from a variety of African leaders, including Nelson Mandela who argued strongly for fairer – rather than freer – structures of international trade.61 This problem was eventually recognised in the G-8’s response to the NEPAD (discussed later in the chapter). On the other hand, the African leaders who established the NEPAD themselves acknowledged that the status quo was not generating investment, and that in the longer term it was investment not aid that was required to generate sustainable economic growth on the continent. The key will lie in adopting policies that allow Africans – albeit with outside help – to increase their endogenous capacity to stimulate growth and production. Blair’s government argued that private investors were a crucial part of the solution and consequently encouraged African states to sign up to the World Bank’s principles of ‘good governance’ and implement neoliberal

Healing a Scar on the World’s Conscience? 89 Table 4.1 UK trade relations with Sub-Saharan Africa (in £ millions)

Exports Imports

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

3,574 2,840

3,312 2,865

2,961 3,242

3,170 4,201

3,466 5,669

Source: Adapted from UK Trade Statistics. http://www.uktradeinfo.com Accessed March 2003.

economic reforms. To this end, by January 1999 the UK had signed 18 bilateral investment treaties and 29 double taxation treaties with African states in an attempt to build environments conducive for FDI by UK companies.62 UK firms certainly accrued significant profits as a result of these initiatives but their benefits to ordinary Africans were much less obvious. Although under Labour, the UK’s economic relationship with Africa was less concentrated upon South Africa than it once was, it remained the only African state among the UK’s top 20 countries for imports. By 2001 the five biggest African states exporting goods to the UK were (in descending order) South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Angola (the UK’s largest non-Commonwealth African market). The largest importers of UK goods were (again in descending order) South Africa, Botswana, Mauritius, Namibia and Kenya. UK exporters to Africa received state support from a variety of mechanisms including Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) Capital Partners and UK Trade and Investment (see Table 4.1). UK businesses were particularly active in seeking openings in the oil, gas and other natural resources sectors. Along with the larger markets, for instance, there was heightened activity in Congo-Brazzaville’s oil sector and there were prospects of much more to come with offshore discoveries all along the Gulf of Guinea. In 2003, for instance, British Petroleum invested in prospecting for gas in Mozambique and saw its profits there increase fivefold over the last three years. At that time, the company had operations in 13 African states mainly in southern Africa, employed about 1,300 people in South Africa alone and expected to invest approximately $7 billion in Angola before 2010.63 In other sectors, UK firms, usually supported by the British state, looked to so-called ‘gateway economies’. The largest and most trusted gateway into southern Africa’s market of 185 million people was South Africa. Here the UK–South Africa Partnership Programme helped to build partnerships between companies in the two states. In July 2002, the two states signed a new double taxation agreement to give business


and investors what Britain’s Paymaster General described as ‘a greater measure of certainty and stability’. Since the end of apartheid, however, South African firms launched increasingly successful ventures throughout the continent, often at the expense of UK businesses as happened in Kenya and Uganda. Partly as a result of this UK firms started to look for gateways into francophone West Africa. Traditionally, Ghana fulfilled this role but more recently Cameroon, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire were also actively courted. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, Blair’s government and private business worked in tandem to win the first major contract for a UK company, TCI, in francophone Africa in 2000. TCI is part of an Anglo-Dutch consortium that won a £130 million contract to extend the Port of Abidjan. Similarly, in Cameroon, a variety of companies including Guinness, Shell, Standard Chartered Bank and British American Tobacco sought to use the country as a gateway into West Africa. The final plank of Labour’s policy, debt relief for African states, became a major British political issue at the turn of the millennium. This was largely due to the extraordinary public activism organised under the umbrella of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition, which succeeded in shaming UK politicians into pushing for greater levels of debt relief (see Chapter 7). Despite grabbing the headlines with promises of total debt cancellation, the UK initiatives championed by Clare Short and Gordon Brown ran into problems in their implementation phase. Consequently, most African states eligible to receive relief under either the World Bank’s Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative or the G-7’s Cologne Initiative of 1999 did not receive the implied benefits. For instance, by September 2003 only eight HIPC states had reached their ‘Completion Point’ (seven of which are African)64 and only 19 per cent of eligible debt stocks had been cancelled.65 In addition, some African states actually saw their position worsen under these schemes. For example, the first African state to be relieved, Uganda, whose debt in 2001 stood at approximately $3409 million, initially saw its terms of relief persistently altered by its creditors until it was actually worse off than before.66 Similarly, in 2003, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia had to pay approximately $325 million to the IMF, World Bank and Paris Club states even as they were experiencing famines.67 The problem Blair’s government faced was that despite all the initiatives only a very small minority of Africans were prosperous, and many of those quickly invested their wealth outside the continent. As Gordon Brown summed it up in 2004, ‘on current progress, we will not only fail to meet the Millennium Development Goals in Africa in ten years time – we will fail to meet them in one hundred years time’.68 The prospects


were not quite as gloomy in relation to Labour’s third objective of promoting democracy. Here again, however, there were problems.

Promoting democracy? Since the World Bank’s 1989 report Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth, democracy or ‘good governance’ became the buzzword of development discourse. Consequently, Labour quickly declared it was – in Cook’s phrase – a ‘friend of democracy’ in Africa.69 For Blair’s government, like the World Bank, ‘good governance’ was defined as virtually synonymous with creating liberal market democracies. In this way, Labour glossed over the ways in which democracy was an inherently contested and controversial concept that in Africa, as elsewhere, meant very different things to different people.70 Like their Conservative predecessors, Labour advocated a particular form of multiparty, liberal democracy that was said to be compatible with economic liberalisation. This conception of democracy appealed to many African elites, not least because they often successfully manipulated elections and any ‘reforms’ without handing over the levers of state power. Consequently, this approach to democratisation often simply ‘recycled elites’.71 In other words, Labour underestimated the ability of neopatrimonial regimes to take on the trappings of democratisation, including holding elections and creating multiparty constitutions, without significantly altering the configurations of political power within the state. As Richard Dowden correctly observed, coming runner-up in an African election often meant ‘poverty, exile or death’.72 In contrast, the continent’s poorest people usually defined democracy as including the provision of social and economic rights as well as civil and political ones. In fact, the brand of liberal market democracy promoted in Africa bore little resemblance to the popular democracy that emerged in Europe during the eighteenth century, which was associated with empowering the mass of society and loosening the grip of a small group of elites over the polity.73 Arguably the biggest test of Labour’s efforts to promote democracy in Africa came in Zimbabwe.74 Again, however, it is important to note that the UK’s focus on Zimbabwe was highly selective. Mugabe was clearly no democrat and deserved criticism but Blair’s government paid far less attention to the continent’s other undemocratic regimes like those in Eritrea, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea or Swaziland, and had relatively little to say about other dubious elections like those in Cameroon and Madagascar. Nevertheless, spurred on by a vocal UK domestic lobby


with links to Zimbabwe’s white population, Blair’s government adopted a policy aimed at pressurising Mugabe’s government ‘to bring about a return to respect for human rights and the rule of law in the country’.75 In practice, however, despite trying to gain political leverage through both the EU and Commonwealth, and imposing a range of targeted sanctions against Mugabe’s regime, Blair’s government ‘was shown up as having responsibility but not power’.76 Labour was not helped by its initial use of ‘megaphone diplomacy’, which did little more than fuel Mugabe’s ability to depict the situation in black and white terms, and the UK as an overbearing imperial power. Blair’s government also became increasingly frustrated with the lacklustre efforts to condemn Mugabe’s behaviour by South Africa and a large number of other African states in the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the Commonwealth. As one commentator correctly noted, in Zimbabwe, solidarity among Africa rulers prevailed ‘over democracy and human rights’.77 The issue of how to treat President Mugabe also soured Anglo-French relations. From the UK perspective, Mugabe was best handled through isolation rather than the kind of engagement offered by President Chirac at the Franco-African summit in Paris in February 2003. Chirac’s invitation to Mugabe fuelled UK perceptions that the French government was too forgiving of the poor governance of its African friends more generally, such as the presidents of Gabon and the Republic of Congo. While this was correct, the UK also had its friends on the continent and was widely seen – especially by the French government and the NGO International Alert – as being too lenient towards Paul Kagame’s regime in Rwanda over its human rights abuses at home and its post-1998 operations in the DRC. The limits of Anglo-French cooperation set out in the 1998 St Malo declaration were also apparent over Sierra Leone when France, along with other European states, refused UK requests for military assistance on the grounds that Sierra Leone was a UK problem.78 Between 1998 and 2001, the UK was also unhappy about French relations with Liberian President Charles Taylor, specifically delaying UN sanctions against Taylor and arguing against the inclusion of tropical timber in the package (timber was not included until May 2003). The UK government apparently felt somewhat vindicated after it perceived a shift in the French approach to Taylor after his support for the Mouvement Patriotique du Grand-Ouest (MPIGO) and the Mouvement pour la Justice et la Paix (MJP) in western Côte d’Ivoire. That said, especially after the Cahors (February 2001) and Le Touquet (February 2003) summits, Anglo-French differences in Africa were minor compared to


the similarities. Operation Artemis in the DRC, for instance, highlighted a more collaborative approach towards the war than was evident a few years earlier.

The UK and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development In October 2001, after several years of negotiations and initiatives, the NEPAD was launched in Abuja, Nigeria. Among a long list of objectives, the document committed African states to better governance and human rights promotion, ending the continent’s wars, fighting corruption, spending more money on education and health, and adopting neoliberal economic policies. The ‘partnership’ in the NEPAD was to be between African states and international institutions in general. In practice, however, it was the G-8’s reaction on aid, debt relief and terms of trade that NEPAD’s architects were primarily looking to for assistance. As Blair made clear on his tour of four West African states in February 2002, he was an enthusiastic supporter of NEPAD for several reasons.79 First, the UK had a ‘discreet’ hand in drafting it, working closely with South Africa.80 Second, Blair saw NEPAD as an ambitious but comprehensive framework for addressing the entire gambit of African affairs. Third, NEPAD represented an example of African-led partnership not of Western states imposing their agendas upon the continent. Fourth, NEPAD made it clear that the type of leadership in Africa matters. Blair used this to emphasise that Africa was not a hopeless continent. It did, however, need committed leaders accountable to their citizens whom he could work with to achieve their shared objectives. The UK’s view of the required agenda for action was most clearly set out by Clare Short in April 2002. The six most urgent issues were said to be ending Africa’s wars, increasing current levels of economic growth, granting the continent fairer terms of trade, attracting the investment necessary to build effective infrastructure, promoting human development by investing in education and effective healthcare systems, and increasing the quantity and quality of aid.81 In short, Labour saw NEPAD as the vehicle through which Africa could achieve the Millennium Development Goals. One of the problems, however, was that NEPAD was a vehicle driven by a small group of African leaders who chose their destination without consulting their own citizens. It was also noticeable that the vehicle was built according to the specifications of Western development consultants. Despite these problems, NEPAD energised a variety of multilateral forums concerned about Africa’s problems. Perhaps the most notable


response came in the form of the G-8’s Africa Action Plan, which in the context of the US-led ‘war on terrorism’ was noticeably focused on development. Drawn up from scratch, this outlined a new agenda for G-8/Africa relations and marked a new commitment to addressing the continent’s problems. Crucially, the Action Plan recognised the need for the G-8 states to change their behaviour, especially by giving Africa fairer terms of international trade; treating trade as a development issue; taking further steps towards debt cancellation; helping to build the continent’s infrastructure; and building a new aid relationship based on notions of local ownership and reversing cuts in aid flows to Africa. On the negative side, despite an infusion of some additional funds, little practical headway was made on altering the terms of international trade. In addition, in light of international responses to Zimbabwe’s crisis, the G-8 plan arguably placed too much faith in Africa’s leaders while underplaying the significance of neopatrimonialism on the continent.82 Third, several G-8 states (not including the UK) failed to deliver the promised resources. Even if they did arrive they would go to those African treasuries that persuaded their Western creditors they were following the good governance rules (so-called enhanced-partnership countries) rather than to Africa’s poorest people. Finally, NEPAD remained couched within a familiar market-led approach to development. This was particularly problematic given that after nearly 25 years liberal approaches to development struggled to produce any genuine success stories on the continent. Clare Short acknowledged as much by frequently noting that on current trends Africa would not halve poverty by 2015 but would actually get poorer.83 Gordon Brown also noted that based on current trends, the promise of primary education for all set out in the Millennium Development Goals would not be delivered until 2130, 115 years too late; the promise of halving poverty levels not until 2150, 135 years too late; and the promise of cutting infant deaths not until 2165, 150 years too late.84 The UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2003 echoed these conclusions when it labelled the 1990s ‘a decade of despair’ in which many of the world’s poorest states had suffered historically unprecedented reversals in key indicators of development (discussed in Chapter 7).85 Whether the NEPAD can produce positive results remains to be seen but to do so its proponents must reform Africa’s neopatrimonial regimes and look beyond market-led approaches to peace, prosperity and democracy. But as Clapham’s warning at the start of this chapter


indicated, ‘outside tinkering’ will achieve little if Africa’s elites fail to adopt policies that give peace, prosperity and democracy a genuine chance. From the vantage point of spring 2005, talk about NEPAD’s potential had produced few concrete results that ordinary Africans and outside observers could appreciate. At that point, the media’s attention switched to the publication of the Commission for Africa’s report, Our Common Interest. The document itself was relatively well received in the press as ‘realistic’, ‘eloquent, structured, wide-ranging, well-argued, passionate and committed’.86 Less attention was paid to Clapham’s observations that the Commission’s ‘thoroughly muddled membership and agenda’ meant it was ‘unlikely to make much impact’ and that it was ‘far too dominated by the British government to have any credibility as an independent assessment of Africa’s needs’.87 Clapham’s concerns were supported by commissioner Bob Geldoff’s acknowledgment ‘that the final few drafting days were marked by huge rows, as the government started to have cold feet about some of the recommendations and some of the language’.88 Nevertheless, the report claimed to offer ‘a coherent package for Africa’ that addressed the continent’s interlocking problems related to peace and security, governance and prosperity. It made recommendations on a wide range of issues, concluding that if the world wanted to heal this scar on its conscience, Africa would require some $75 billion of extra resources for 2010 (p. 353). This included more aid, more and fairer trade, more debt cancellation, less arms deals, more resources ploughed into education (at primary, secondary and higher levels), more money spent on healthcare, technology and infrastructure, more stringent rules on transparency and corporate responsibility, and for the world to pay more attention to Africa’s diversity and cultures. The major stumbling blocks came in three main areas. First, there was a distinctly lukewarm response from the other G-8 states. Second, despite the Commission’s emphasis on the need to stamp out corruption within African governments and prevent Western banks from harbouring funds stolen from Africa by corrupt leaders, Blair’s government had failed to ratify the UN Convention Against Corruption (it became a signatory on 9 December 2003). Third, the traditional obstacles in agricultural trade remained, especially European and North American policies designed to protect their farmers from foreign competition. This issue exemplified some of the central tensions in Labour’s economic liberalism. In particular, while Blair’s government was a strong supporter of neoliberal economic principles it was content to maintain protectionist policies when trying to


gain the support of important domestic constituencies such as farmers or arms dealers. To account for these tensions, it is important to look beyond Africa and instead examine the political economy of Blair’s project more generally. Consequently, the following chapter explores the first of the five central issues that occupy Part III of this book, namely, the economic dimensions of Labour’s foreign policies.

Part III Issues


5 Navigating in the Global Economy

Debates about the economic dimensions of Labour’s foreign policies revolved in large part around the meaning and impact of neoliberalism and globalisation. For Blair’s government, neoliberal globalisation – appropriately managed to mitigate its negative consequences – was seen as having the potential to bring unprecedented prosperity and development to both Britain and the wider world. Like their Conservative predecessors, Labour continued to promote neoliberal globalisation as a central plank of its international economic agenda.1 As Blair put it, in the aftermath of 9/11, ‘globalisation is a fact. ... The issue is not how to stop globalisation. The issue is how we use the power of community to combine it with justice’.2 For the government’s most strident critics, however, this agenda of promoting economic liberalisation globally fundamentally failed to combine globalisation with justice. According to Mark Curtis, for instance, Labour’s international economic agenda represented a ‘very frightening’ attempt to break into foreign markets and organise the global economy in ways that would benefit large TNCs and a transnational business elite, and deepen poverty and inequality across the planet.3 These competing positions embody very different understandings of the meaning and limits of neoliberal globalisation. They also disagree about how the economic dimensions of Labour’s foreign policies evolved – and should evolve – in practice. Since the distinction between ‘economics’ and ‘politics’ – so clear and important in neoliberal theory – is difficult if not impossible to pin down in practice, my preference throughout is to talk about Labour’s international political economy rather than its foreign economic policy. The difficulty of establishing a clear division of ‘political’ and ‘economic’ labour is also reflected within the machinery of UK government itself since the Treasury, No. 10, the 99


Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), DFID, FCO and MOD amongst other departments are all heavily involved in both. As this chapter demonstrates, several themes were apparent in Labour’s international political economy. First, it intensified the relationships – what ministers usually referred to as partnerships – between the state and the private sector (in the form of the City, TNCs and NGOs). During Labour’s period in office, the hand of private interests and actors in these ‘partnerships’ was strengthened. In foreign policy, this was particularly evident in the sphere of commercial diplomacy. Second, Blair’s government pursued the traditional objective of helping UK business secure contracts abroad. It did so in two main ways: first, by helping to liberalise the rules governing the international trading and financial systems, thereby supporting the logic that political barriers should not impede legitimate commercial pursuits and second, by putting the collective weight of the UK’s diplomatic corps behind the search for contracts in so-called gateway economies and big emerging markets. Third, as these two strategies suggest, Labour’s international political economy was marked by a central tension inasmuch as the professed desire for liberalisation and free markets was consistently tempered by traditional mercantilist concerns to support UK business. Also, as discussed in Chapter 6 with reference to the UK’s defence industrial base, some sectors of British business enjoyed considerably more government support than others. What I refer to as the limits of Labour’s neoliberalism was evident in a variety of different issues, not least the UK’s commercial diplomacy, its refusal to sign up to the MAI and its efforts to construct a new system of international finance by reforming the Bretton Woods institutions. This chapter thus offers a critical analysis of the contradictory mix of neoliberalism and mercantilism that constituted Labour’s international political economy. The contradictions stemmed primarily from the government’s desire to portray itself as pursuing different priorities to different target audiences and constituencies. Hence, Labour simultaneously pushed for both the further liberalisation of the international financial system and for stronger powers of regulation for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It called for international free trade but failed to alter the protectionist barriers that insulated the EU’s markets from truly global competition or make changes to the subsidies that support the UK’s defence industrial complex (see Chapter 6). In addition it spoke about freeing firms from government interference while simultaneously ensuring that the UK’s diplomats spent a significant proportion of their time engaged in commercial diplomacy to distort international

Navigating in the Global Economy 101

markets in order to help UK firms win contracts abroad. Despite these contradictions, the primary beneficiaries of these policies were large Western TNCs and UK business elites, notably those in the City. To explore these issues, the chapter proceeds in four parts. The first section discusses how Labour’s commitment to neoliberalism emerged and what it entailed. In light of this commitment, the second section analyses how this affected the party’s understanding of globalisation and interdependence. It then reflects upon what this reveals about Blair’s claims that his party had adopted a third way between old-left and new-right thinking. I suggest that in the international realm there is more evidence that Labour signed up to the so-called ‘post-Washington consensus’ than there is to suggest it forged a third way. The third section examines how these commitments influenced Labour’s policies in three practical issue areas: its attempts to promote and then reform the MAI, its approach to reforming the international financial system and its stance on international trade. The final section discusses Labour’s mercantilist approach to commercial diplomacy and examines the roles that UK firms played in the government’s policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with China. In terms of Labour’s four underlying foreign policy commitments, the majority of the chapter is devoted to understanding the party’s relationship with neoliberal theory. However, Atlanticism is also evident in Labour’s international political economy. With a few exceptions (such as the MAI negotiations), Blair’s government supported the agendas of successive US administrations with regard to the international financial institutions. In this sense Blair’s government did not challenge the fundamental organising principles of the global economy and the hegemony of US power within it. In relation to multilateralism Labour’s international political economy was notable in two respects. First, it made increasing use of non-state forms of multilateralism in the form of public–private ‘partnerships’. Second, it sought to promote its approach to political economy in a wide variety of international organisations including the EU and the Commonwealth. Finally, Blair and other Labour ministers explicitly justified their commitments to free trade and increased capital liberalisation by referring to these developments as ‘moral’ – not just technical – ‘imperatives’.4

New Labour’s new liberalism Several studies have suggested that Blair’s Labour party promoted a neoliberal brand of political economy both at home and abroad.5 This


conclusion, which I find persuasive, raises two questions. First, how did an ostensibly social democratic and left of centre party come to adopt policies traditionally associated with the new right? Second, what did new Labour’s commitment to neoliberalism entail in relation to foreign policy? The answer to the first question is inextricably bound up with the Labour party’s modernisation process and its metamorphosis from ‘old’ to ‘new’ Labour.6 Indeed, one study suggested that for Blair’s party the ‘core meaning’ of ‘modernization’ was ‘that social institutions must be reshaped to meet the imperatives of the free market’.7 The primary purpose of Labour’s modernisation was to ensure that the party was publicly perceived as being more in tune with voters’ preferences. In this sense, the goal was to shake off the tag of ‘the party of opposition’ and instead remake Labour’s image as ‘the natural party of government’. A particularly important part of this process was transforming Labour ‘From being the party not trusted with the economy’ to ‘the only party trusted with the economy’.8 To do this, Labour leaders set out to persuade four important audiences – UK voters, the UK labour movement, UK business leaders and overseas business and financial institutions – that they had adopted credible policies that would allow Britain to compete effectively within an increasingly global economy. Without such reassurances, the UK electorate might not vote for Labour and overseas investors might move their investments elsewhere. At home, therefore, Labour emphasised schemes promoting ‘labour market flexibility’, ‘welfare reform’ and ‘welfare to work’, while abroad it sought to remake the European and ‘global economic order in the image of their internal settlement’.9 The latter was clearly evident in the economic reform initiative launched at a meeting of European leaders in Cardiff and hosted by Blair. In essence, this aimed to persuade Europe to embrace the American tradition of capitalism. The initiative was formalised at a subsequent summit in Lisbon where Blair suggested the so-called Lisbon process heralded a welcome ‘sea change in Europe’s economic thinking’.10 As Colin Hay has persuasively argued, Labour’s understanding of the global economy played a crucial role in justifying, indeed, necessitating its modernisation process. In particular, advocates for ‘new’ Labour suggested that, because the contemporary era was characterised by a qualitatively novel set of circumstances and processes, this necessitated a break with Labour’s traditional social democratic principles at home and liberal internationalism abroad. From this perspective, new Labourites distilled the history of the post-1945 global economy down to two main


developments: the move from a Fordist to post-Fordist stage of capitalist development via the crisis of the mid-1970s and the acceleration of contemporary globalisation (see later).11 The implication of this analysis was straightforward: ‘new times’ dictated a new approach to politics. Hence, in much the same way as neorealists in International Relations maintain that international anarchy necessitates foreign policies based on realpolitik, new Labourites claimed that global economic reality necessitated neoliberal responses. Blair’s supporters were hardly alone in promoting the virtues of neoliberalism. Since the early 1980s, a wide array of think-tanks, periodicals and organic intellectuals in North America and Western Europe had expounded the virtues of neoliberal ideas. Indeed, they have yet to relinquish the intellectual high ground to more left-wing challengers.12 Nevertheless, Labour’s preference for neoliberalism was surprising. Although Blair’s government rejected the structurally determinist idea that international anarchy necessitated a foreign policy based on realpolitik, in the economic realm new Labourites adopted precisely the opposite logic and argued that a liberal global economy necessitated a neoliberal response. The problem was that this interpretation of global economic realities smacked of an ‘empirically suspect, theoretically flawed and politically dangerous’ strain of economic determinism.13 The most persuasive explanation for why Labour adopted this stance was that it fitted its chosen electoral strategy during both the 1997 and 2001 general elections.14 In doing so, Labour accepted a large part of the legacy of Thatcherism and sought only to reform rather than transform its fundamentals in a more social democratic direction. In short, by the time Labour arrived in office it conceived ‘neither of the need for, nor indeed the possibility of, ... an alternative to the ascendant neoliberalism of the times’.15 Labour’s commitment to neoliberalism entailed several theoretical assumptions (only some of which were usually made explicit). These, in turn, influenced the parameters of policy debates although it is fair to say that they did not necessarily dictate specific policies. This is because neoliberalism, at least as I refer to it here, does not comprise of a distinct set of policy options. Rather, it represents a tradition of thought wherein several related but distinct theories co-exist and even conflict over certain issues. Crucially, however, despite their differences, these theories share certain family resemblances. Neoliberalism thus exerts a gravitational pull on actors that helps legitimise certain collective understandings of economic and political ‘reality’ and de-legitimise others. Importantly, it is only since the early 1980s that neoliberalism


assumed an ascendant position within UK governments and became the intellectual gold standard against which other views are evaluated.16 Neoliberal theories share four family resemblances, all of which were evident in Labour’s international political economy. First, neoliberals believe that a natural, long-term harmony of interests exists within the framework of a free market, whereby national and international economic activity is viewed as mutually beneficial to participants. In sum, the global economy (and commercial exchange) is viewed as a non-zero-sum situation in which conflict can be managed and bargains struck on the basis that everyone could gain (although in practice actors are likely to benefit unequally). This logic was perhaps most clearly visible in the government’s two White Papers on international development (analysed in more detail in Chapter 7) and in the DTI’s White Paper of July 2004, Making Globalisation a Force for Good. It was also apparent in Labour’s stance on international trade and investment practices. As Blair suggested, ‘free trade is not a zero sum game ... in the end actually it benefits us all’.17 A second shared characteristic is that economics and politics exist, at least ideally, in autonomous spheres. Crucially, this distinction is not neutral: economics is understood as conforming to a superior, more technical, rationality than the inherently conflictual political sphere. From this perspective, politics should be shaped by the needs of the economic structure. An example of this type of thinking at work is Labour’s decision to hand over control of an inherently political institution like the Bank of England to technocrats rather than democratically elected representatives (discussed later in the chapter). Third, following from the presumed superiority of economic logic, the political borders erected by states should not be allowed to obstruct the spread of market logic. In Labour’s case, this translated into support for the liberalisation of both the international trading and financial regimes and avoiding capital market segmentation. As Blair consistently repeated, his government was ‘an unashamed champion of free trade’, and ‘capital liberalisation is right’.18 Finally, neoliberals make the explicitly normative claim that the role of the state should be confined to the limited (but important) functions of providing defence against external threats and maintaining law and order at home, in sum, the conditions for efficient and predictable commerce. The Blair government’s support for public–private partnerships – with greater proportions of formerly public services being run by private actors – was indicative of this mode of thinking. Although it is claimed that state intervention in the market should be kept to a


minimum, this assumption ignores the amount of state power required to provide the conditions necessary for markets to function freely. It also ignores Karl Polanyi’s famous warnings about the inherent political dangers involved in allowing the marketisation of society to proceed without ensuring that sufficiently robust mechanisms are in place to ensure that all citizens can enjoy basic standards of welfare provision.19

Globalisation and the limits of Labour’s ‘third way’ These neoliberal assumptions fed directly into Labour’s foreign policy in several ways. In relation to the government’s international political economy however, it is the dominant understanding of globalisation and interdependence that had the most important effects. Of these two concepts the former was responsible for doing most of the theoretical and practical work. As noted in Chapter 1, Labour understood political interdependence as the condition brought about by the processes of globalisation whereby actors become acutely sensitive and vulnerable to events initiated elsewhere in the international system. This notion of interdependence became particularly important in Labour’s security and defence discourses, especially with regard to the nexus between technology, radicalism and WMD (see Chapters 2 and 6). The way in which Labour elites understood globalisation is altogether more complicated and requires more detailed elaboration. In particular, how did Labour’s leadership conceptualise globalisation? How did this affect UK foreign policy? And what does this reveal about the Blair government’s stated intention of charting a third way in the global economy between oldstyle socialism and new-right capitalism? According to Watson and Hay, the most important developments in Labour’s discourse of globalisation occurred primarily between 1995 and 1997 when a series of high profile speeches drew on several traditions of economic thought to send one simple political message. In the contemporary era, the processes of globalisation had rendered the policies that had sustained the ‘embedded liberalism’ of the post-war period neither feasible nor desirable.20 Labour’s discourse of globalisation invoked three themes in particular based on its interpretation of global economic realities. First, Labour signed up to the so-called business school globalisation thesis whereby faced with the global diffusion of a neoliberal macroeconomic orthodoxy, Britain, like other structurally weakened states needed to transfer economic power to ‘the market’. Second, Labour invoked the ‘structural dependence thesis’ to argue that in an era of heightened capital mobility,


political parties had little option but to adopt policies that persuaded capital and investors to remain within the UK. Third, in line with orthodox economic theories of macroeconomic policy-making, Blair’s party argued that a single global capital market was increasingly capable of ‘policing’ governments that did not adopt credible counter-inflationary targets. Ideally, such targets should be institutionalised to insulate them from party-political pressures. This was designed to have two effects: to depoliticise economic choices and enable the path-dependent effects of institutionalisation to entrench one particular set of policy preferences. A clear example of Labour’s commitment to these assumptions was its decision to grant operational autonomy to the Bank of England within a week of taking office. Although justified by Labour’s interpretation of global economic realities, this policy was not forced upon UK officials but was a conscious decision taken by insiders, albeit after close consultation with Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve.21 The primary architects of this decision were Gordon Brown and his personal economic adviser, Ed Balls. Brown and Balls stressed that in tune with the so-called post-Washington consensus and in order to compete effectively within a global economy and gain macroeconomic credibility in a world of global capital markets, monetary and fiscal policy should be separated and the Bank given practical independence. Responsibility for making UK international economic policy was thus deliberately handed to central bankers and technocrats whose primary concerns lay in pleasing the City and appeasing internationally mobile forms of capital by building ‘investor confidence’.22 Such legal and political strategies for securing the management of the economy in the hands of largely unaccountable central bankers and technocrats are hardly unique to Labour. Rather, they are part of a broader international phenomenon apparent in most advanced industrial democracies that has been labelled the ‘new constitutionalism’.23 However, focusing on this single political message and the Bank of England example suggests a greater degree of coherence in Labour’s use of globalisation than is warranted. As Colin Hay and Nicola Smith have shown, Labour ministers invoked globalisation in a variety of different ways depending on the primary audience in question.24 Specifically, Hay and Smith offer a useful way of categorising Labour’s official globalisation discourse based on whether it was understood as a contingent or inevitable process, and whether it entailed positive, open-ended or negative political connotations. Table 5.1 depicts the range of possible discourses on globalisation while Table 5.2 depicts Hay and Smith’s

Navigating in the Global Economy 107 Table 5.1 Discourses of globalisation Globalisation as unambiguously positive

Character of globalisation contingent upon political choices

Globalisation as unambiguously negative

Inevitable/inexorable process (non-negotiable)

1 – globalisation as a non-negotiable external economic constraint

2 – globalisation as inevitable but as a process whose content is amenable to political influence

3 – globalisation as threat of homogenisation

Contingent process or tendency to which counter-tendencies might be mobilised

4 – globalisation as a political project which should be defended

5 – globalisation as a political project which must be made defensible

6 – globalisation as a political project which must be resisted

Table 5.2 UK Government’s appeal to globalisation since 1997 Globalisation as unambiguously positive

Character of globalisation contingent upon political choices

Globalisation as unambiguously negative

Inevitable/inexorable process (nonnegotiable)

1 – globalisation circumscribes the parameters of political and economic choice (Labour’s domestic political economy)

2 – no appeal to such a discourse


Contingent process or tendency to which counter-tendencies might be mobilised

4 – globalisation as liberalisation is potentially beneficial for all (Labour’s foreign economic policy)

5 – a socialised globalisation is, and must be made, beneficial for all (Labour’s development policy)


Source for Tables 5.1 and 5.2: Colin Hay and Nicola J. Smith, ‘Horses for Courses? The political discourse of globalisation and European integration in the UK and Ireland’, West European Politics, 28: 1 (2005), pp.124-58. Taylor and Francis: www.tandf.co.uk/journals.

analysis of the discourses utilised by Labour ministers in specific policy sectors. From their analysis of over 100 ministerial speeches referring to either globalisation or European integration, Hay and Smith concluded that although Labour was inconsistent in its use of globalisation, its ministers invoked ‘a consistently rosy depiction’ of the term. Consequently,


they suggested that Discourse 4 represented the key external face of Labour’s political economy. While broadly accurate for Labour’s international political economy, this conclusion needs to be qualified in two respects. First, although it did not dwell on the subject, the government did occasionally refer explicitly to the ‘darker side’ of globalisation exemplified by such phenomena as drug- and people-trafficking, prostitution and child labour.25 In addition, when the strategic elements of UK security and defence policy, especially after 9/11, are taken into account, Discourses 2 and 5 assume more prominent roles with the government regularly emphasising the need to shape globalisation in desirable directions and reduce its potentially negative effects. To repeat Blair’s warning in the aftermath of 9/11, ‘globalisation is a fact and, by and large, it is driven by people [Discourse 2]. ... The issue is not how to stop globalisation. The issue is how we use the power of community to combine it with justice’ (Discourse 5).26 As discussed in Chapters 2, 6 and 9, Labour ministers consistently warned of the negative connotations of the nexus between radicalism/terrorism, globalisation (here understood as facilitating the rapid and potentially secret and/or illicit diffusion of military or dual-use technologies) and WMD.27 Indeed, it was the hypothetical scenario of the Hussein regime’s WMD finding their way into the hands of radical organisations that was a major factor behind the US and UK’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (see Chapter 9). Several effects followed from this understanding of globalisation. As noted earlier, arguably the most important was that the acceleration of globalisation intensified the condition of political interdependence in which Blair’s government found itself. The resulting inability of national governments to control events initiated elsewhere combined with the decline in UK economic power since 1945 led some commentators to argue that Britain should adopt a more limited set of economic objectives focused around promoting its own national development within the context of European integration. Such pleas were particularly common in the early 1990s. Will Hutton, for instance, argued that the Cold War’s end should have ‘stripped away’ the last British pretensions to being a world power. Successive UK governments, Hutton suggested, had for too long relied upon the City’s unusually strong ‘financial firepower’ instead of finding other ways to promote national development. His solution was for the UK to shift its priorities from ‘sustaining a world order to promoting national economic development’. Crucially, this would ‘require a sometimes brutal restructuring of our institutions and commitments, particularly in defence and finance, and a greater willingness to accept “European” solutions rather than attempt to


preserve great power status’. For Hutton, Britain’s relationship with Germany should be cultivated ‘as the new fulcrum around which the EC turns’.28 The need for the UK to focus on Europe was also recognised by analysts who believed that after the Cold War, ‘Britain’s reduced role in the world economy means that it is unrealistic to suppose that its voice alone will have much influence.’29 As David Currie and David Vines argued in 1992, ‘the way in which Britain’s influence will prevail globally depends ... on whether we can win this battle for the future development of Europe’.30 As discussed in Chapter 2, while in matters of security Blair’s government clearly chose to stand ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with the US, the UK’s economic future lay increasingly within the EU’s enlarging markets. In Blair’s words, ‘with 60 per cent of our trade dependent on Europe, three million jobs tied up with Europe, much of our political weight engaged in Europe, it would be a fundamental denial of our true national interest to turn our backs on Europe’.31 Nevertheless, it is difficult to conclude that Blair’s government gave up its pretensions to great power status when most of its international political economy involved promoting policies designed to set global not just national or regional rules or codes of conduct (see later). Instead, Blair’s government responded to political interdependence by trying to create a global economic playing field based on liberal rules, norms and institutions on which the UK must compete, and compete effectively. There is nothing particularly novel about Labour’s stance on this issue. Based on their understanding(s) of globalisation, successive UK governments, including Blair’s, adopted policies that heavily integrated the UK into the developing global economy. The practical effect of these policies was to turn the UK into what Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson called an ‘over-internationalized economy in an underglobalized world’.32 Relative to other G-7 states, for instance, the UK economy is uniquely penetrated by international capital: it is highly dependent on inward foreign direct investment, its manufacturing sector is dominated by foreign-owned firms and its banks, pension funds and investment houses invest a far greater proportion of their domestic capital abroad. This situation is hardly unique to Labour’s period in office.33 Nevertheless, two consequences were evident. First, the UK economy and British citizens were left ‘uniquely structurally vulnerable’ to externally initiated shocks in foreign financial markets and to the decisions of foreign business interests.34 Second, by acting on the basis of an overly determinist understanding of the appropriate responses to globalisation, Labour actively helped shape reality in the image of their own ideas.


In so doing, Blair’s government demonstrated the constitutive rather than explanatory nature of theory. What do the dominant meanings attached to globalisation and neoliberalism by Labour’s leadership reveal about Blair’s claims that his government was charting a third way between the ideologies of the oldleft and new-right? For Blair, the third way represented ‘a new politics arising from the ashes of the struggles of the twentieth century between traditional views of capitalism and of socialism’, a politics that ‘seeks to combine economic dynamism with social justice’.35 These ideas were not developed in sufficient practical detail to inform many specific policy decisions. Over Iraq, for instance, in September 2004 Blair admitted that a third way proved elusive.36 Rather, its importance came in defining the wider ideological and political boundaries within which certain policy options were considered credible and others dismissed as unrealistic. As noted in Chapter 2, Blair’s third way drew heavily from the policies of Bill Clinton’s new Democrats and UK public intellectuals such as Anthony Giddens who sought to shift the British political debate beyond what he thought was the increasingly sterile dualism between old-left and new-right.37 Arguably, the key theme of Blair’s statements about the third way was the need to harness the market to serve the public interest. In relation to foreign policy, it has been suggested that Blair’s third way stood for the ideals of modern and accountable government, a new international identity for Britain and the promotion of human rights.38 In practice, however, Labour’s international political economy was much closer to new-right economics than old-style socialism and displayed more than a passing resemblance to the so-called post-Washington consensus made famous by the World Bank’s Joseph Stiglitz.39 Unlike Margaret Thatcher, the idea of ‘society’ is an important concept for Blair’s government. Nevertheless, Labour’s understanding of globalisation encouraged policies which involved society adjusting its conceptions of justice to fit with what the marketplace could deliver rather than government adjusting the social dynamics of the marketplace to deliver the kind of justice society desired.

The limits of Labour’s new liberalism in practice And yet there were clearly practical limits to Labour’s neoliberalism. As the following analysis of its policies on international free trade, the MAI and the reform of the international financial architecture suggests, in each of these three areas it was possible to detect both the ethical and


practical limitations of Labour’s commitment to neoliberal principles. Specifically, these examples highlight the contested nature of claims that Blair considers axiomatic, the extent to which Labour was unwilling to support the implementation of reforms it considered too neoliberal and the counter-productive nature of its attempts to liberalise the international financial architecture. For Blair’s government, the need to further liberalise the international trading order became something of an article of faith reiterated annually by UK representatives at the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, Switzerland. In case there was any doubt, the government made its position on free trade abundantly clear in the aftermath of the so-called ‘Battle for Seattle’ in November 1999 where a succession of Labour ministers branded those protesting against the latest developments within the World Trade Organization (WTO) as naïve, deluded and nihilistic. Similarly, speaking to the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong on 24 July 2003, Blair reiterated his usual defence of neoliberal globalisation but added the normative argument that ‘freeing trade and fighting protectionism is a moral as well as an economic imperative’. Freeing ‘trade throughout the world,’ he continued, ‘is actually the single most important thing that we could do to help the very poorest countries of the world’. This was not an imperative that the UK should pursue alone. Rather, it should be promoted in as wide a variety of multilateral forums as possible. Unfortunately for Labour ministers, ‘the very poorest countries of the world’ did not pursue the cause of free trade with the same missionary zeal. An early example of some of the world’s poorer countries challenging these assertions came at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting held in Edinburgh in October 1997. At this meeting, Blair had reiterated his belief in international free trade and further economic liberalisation and suggested that the Commonwealth ‘should be a force for free trade’. At the same time, the DTI emphasised the importance of institutions like the Commonwealth in preparing developing states to be able to meet the requirements of WTO membership.40 However, although the Commonwealth’s members eventually signed the Promoting Shared Prosperity document committing the institution to free market values, the debates at the summit showed a clear division between the rich and poor members. The latter were particularly concerned that international free trade brought with it dangers as well as opportunities. Nelson Mandela, for instance, cautioned that the declaration was not binding and that many reservations existed about free market principles. Not least among their concerns was the belief that freeing up the


rules on trade without also addressing some of the fundamental structural imbalances in the global economy would simply allow those states and firms who currently dominated the world’s markets to dominate more efficiently. Although Blair’s government did occasionally draw attention to such structural inequities in the international trading system, it offered few practical options to overcome them.41 Questions about the roles private firms should play within the global economy were also at the heart of the negotiations to conclude the MAI. The MAI negotiations began within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in May 1995 (although it was envisaged that the finished agreement would also be open to non-OECD signatories).42 Their purpose was to build on earlier agreements such as the WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures to create conditions more conducive to transnational investment around the world. The main impetus for the MAI appears to have been the feeling among many TNCs and certain OECD states that the existing regional arrangements and Bilateral Investment Treaties were not producing optimum patterns of investment. The idea was therefore to replace the existing arrangements with a comprehensive set of rules. The problem was that the major states involved could not agree on what these rules should entail. As a result, the negotiations officially collapsed in October 1998 following France’s withdrawal. In practical terms, however, the negotiations had ceased making effective progress six months earlier when the US government lost interest as it became clear it was not achieving its desired objectives.43 The MAI’s failure clearly exposed the limits of many states’ professed commitment to neoliberalism. The major concern expressed by these states was that the MAI’s implementation would have dramatically eroded their ability to regulate some important aspects of corporate investment, notably in relation to labour and environmental standards. In short, for all its talk of the benefits of liberalisation, Labour considered the version of the MAI pushed by the US to be too neoliberal.44 In the UK, the MAI’s failure was notable for two reasons. First, considering its potential impact, it attracted very little media coverage until the substantive negotiations were effectively over.45 Second, the episode was often depicted as a victory for NGOs lobbying to prevent further neoliberal globalisation. In reality, however, while the MAI’s failure did indeed signal the limits of neoliberalism, most NGO lobbying had little impact and came after the states involved had already failed to reconcile their substantial disagreements. The UK delegation, for instance, only engaged with what it considered credible and well-informed NGOs such


as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and cherry-picked useful research to help achieve the government’s objectives.46 The major points of disagreement between the states involved often left the US isolated because of its desire to push a vehemently neoliberal agenda that many other delegations felt would reduce the ability of their governments to regulate corporations and the investment climate within their territories. In particular, many EU states, including the UK, disagreed with the US on a variety of provisions, notably those over dispute settlement in the pre-establishment phase, performance requirements and subsidies and exemptions.47 Labour’s arrival in office had a significant impact on the UK’s position.48 Although Blair’s government continued to support the negotiations,49 as Natalie Williams observed, it developed a more cautious attitude to the MAI and proved more willing than its predecessors ‘to include clauses that prohibited countries from lowering their labour and environmental standards to attract investment’. In particular, Labour’s desire to be seen as pursuing environmentally friendly policies meant that it used NGO concerns that the MAI would produce ‘a race to the bottom’ (in terms of environmental and labour standards) to add weight to its own worries about the extent of the proposed liberalisation. Nevertheless, the UK remained keen to secure an agreement on its preferred terms, and as holder of the EU presidency (January–June 1998), Blair’s government tried to convince the US to continue supporting the agreement. Washington, however, was not persuaded and asked for another year of negotiations.50 As it became clear that the agreement would not drastically alter the ability of states to regulate corporations, big business representatives also began to lose interest. The MAI’s failure was not, however, the end of the story as Blair’s government continued to push for a similar agreement within different international forums. In 1999, two reports by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry and the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee both suggested renewed MAI negotiations should proceed in order to advance a ‘liberal rules-based system of investment’. According to Rorden Wilkinson, these reports were indicative of Labour’s appeal to globalisation to justify renewed MAI negotiations while only ‘paying lip-service to the needs of labour and the environment’. In addition, the government’s preference to include developing states in the MAI downplayed the extent to which the removal of these states’ capital controls would open them up to business seeking low cost production.51 In contrast to the MAI, Labour’s plans to reform the international financial architecture exhibited a misplaced faith in the ability of its


preferred brand of liberalisation to prevent volatility in the world’s capital markets. In his Chicago speech of April 1999, Blair called for a ‘thorough, far reaching overhaul and reform of the system of international financial regulation’.52 This had been Labour policy for some time but was frequently reiterated by Blair and Gordon Brown in particular as a crucial part of building an ‘international community’ based on liberal values. Despite its claims to the contrary, the government’s discourse on how best to alter the existing institutional frameworks for fiscal and monetary transparency at the international level were indicative of the ethical limits and practical problems of its neoliberal approach.53 During Labour’s first two terms the dramatic effects of volatile international financial markets was illustrated on several occasions, not least in East Asia, Russia and Argentina. As more and more UK citizens saved money in ways that are affected by such volatility so national economic development became more intimately related to the behaviour of financial markets. As a result, a considerable electoral impetus existed for Labour to stabilise the international financial architecture. The government’s proposals, however, highlighted the limits of neoliberal mechanisms for resolving such problems. As Matthew Watson has persuasively argued, all financial architectures represent mechanisms that distribute systemic risks within society. They are, therefore, political structures that influence the configuration of power relations within that society. During its period in office, Watson contends that in line with the Clinton administration’s agenda, Labour promoted liberal reforms intended to alter the distribution of systemic risks away from financial markets and towards society in general, whilst supporting flows of wealth in the opposite direction. In practice, Blair’s government pushed for increasingly transparent codes of conduct (policed by the IMF) that would ‘institutionalise free market norms within all the world’s capital markets’.54 In this context, ‘transparency’ referred to the need for a reciprocal process of information dissemination between governments and markets. Labour justified its proposals on the grounds that limiting the scope of government interventions would solve the problems of volatile financial markets. This approach was completely in tune with its desire to be seen as fiscally responsible and credible, and its attempts to depoliticise the levers of economic decision-making by placing control in the hands of technocrats rather than party officials. In the realm of international finance, Labour ministers consistently ‘extolled the virtues of an institutional framework that allows a suitably empowered IMF to impart more discipline on domestic policy choice’.55


A central problem in Labour’s policies, as Watson points out, was their tendency to ignore the crucial point that the most significant source of systemic instability within international financial markets was not intervention by governments but the activities of private sector actors within the markets themselves ‘who have a profit-maximising incentive to obscure information flows about the structure of the market’.56 This encouraged Blair’s government to reject proposals, such as the Tobin Tax, which involved re-imposing capital market segmentation to enable the creation of institutionalised national variations within the global market. In short, Watson suggested that if – as most of the relevant empirical evidence appears to indicate – it is the extent of liberalisation already present within international financial markets that is a major cause of systemic instability, then Labour’s attempts to further liberalise these markets in ways more conducive to speculative activities by private sector actors would be unlikely to ensure greater levels of stability. On this reading, one likely set of political consequences resulting from Labour’s push for a ‘new Bretton Woods’ is ‘to undermine still further society’s ability to shape the distribution of risks created by excessive market volatility’.57 Instead, Watson concluded that Labour encouraged what Susan Strange described as a ‘casino form of capitalism’ and ‘a fundamental mismatch between those who create risk within the financial system (trend-chasing market actors), and those who are forced to accept the burden of risk relayed through that system (those in society least able to insure themselves against such risks)’.58 In sum, Labour’s support for the further liberalisation of the international financial architecture seemed ‘more likely to trigger greater rather than less market volatility’; was content to leave existing structures of social power and authority in the international system unchallenged and prioritised the demands of powerful private sector interests over the needs of the weaker majority. These effects are difficult to reconcile with claims that it was promoting a third way or acting as ‘a force for good’ in the world.

Labour’s commercial diplomacy: the case of UK–China relations Under Labour, private firms were also encouraged to play far greater roles in UK commercial diplomacy, defined as ‘the work of a network of public and private actors who manage commercial relations using diplomatic channels and processes’.59 In a fundamental sense, the idea of using government funds, facilities and expertise to distort international markets in favour of UK firms – the basic purpose of commercial


diplomacy – stands in complete contrast to the principles of neoliberal theory and the idea that markets should be allowed to find their own equilibrium free from ‘political’ interference.60 The prominence given to commercial diplomacy highlights the fact that while much of Labour’s international political economy was designed to promote a global economy managed according to liberal rules, UK foreign policy retained an underlying mercantilist thrust designed to ensure that British firms could compete as profitably as possible (see also Chapter 6). Labour’s policies thus intensified a much longer tradition whereby UK diplomats have been required to engage in trade and investment promotion activities. As a consequence, private commercial actors assumed more prominent positions within the foreign policy-making process. As Donna Lee has shown, Labour altered government–business relations in three main ways with respect to commercial diplomacy: the planning of UK commercial diplomacy was increasingly centralised, the commercial roles of diplomats were extended and private interests were formally integrated within the UK diplomatic system.61 Labour’s innovative means of centralising UK commercial diplomacy was British Trade International (BTI). Launched in June 1999, this joint FCO-DTI body was intended to coordinate – or ‘join-up’ – the activities of the network of actors engaged in UK commercial diplomacy. This was to be done through the use of information technology tools such as BTI’s website and through the use of commercial lobbying and intelligence derived in large part from the UK’s substantial network of overseas posts. BTI’s board was purposely designed to ensure there were more business representatives (usually from medium-sized individual firms rather than sector associations such as the Confederation of British Industry) than government representatives. Despite some notable achievements BTI and its two operating arms, UK Trade Partners and Invest UK, were replaced by UK Trade & Investment in October 2003. This re-branding came in response to a raft of complaints from the business sector about the confusing way in which BTI had been organised.62 In terms of targets, since 1997 UK commercial diplomacy identified potentially lucrative markets for British firms to penetrate, particularly in China, India, Brazil, Japan, Mexico and the oil-rich Caspian region. In addition, as discussed in chapter 4, BTI and UK Trade & Investment also helped UK firms win contracts in the smaller – but potentially lucrative – markets of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the energy sector. Lee’s final point about the increasingly blurred distinction between traditional diplomatic and business identities is particularly important. With diplomats receiving more and more training in business skills and


being presented with greater opportunities for career development in the area of commercial diplomacy, and with placement schemes granting greater numbers of business representatives temporary diplomatic status in UK overseas missions, the distinction between public and private actors became increasingly hazy. Although there were some high profile cases of business representatives on secondment abusing their diplomatic status, such activities were increasingly considered ‘normal’ and regarded as a great success by Blair’s government.63 The confusion – and at times professional anxiety – caused by the blurring of the ‘economic’ and ‘political’ identities of business representatives and diplomats highlights the limitations of neoliberalism’s assumption of clearly autonomous economic and political realms. Nowhere is this clearer than in the ways in which UK firms and business representatives were used as instruments of explicitly political foreign policy objectives. An excellent example of this was the case of UK–China relations and the role that Blair’s government ascribed to British firms in the pursuit of its policy of constructive engagement.64 Since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, Britain’s China policy revolved around achieving the three interrelated objectives of developing commercial opportunities for UK business, promoting liberal political change within China and encouraging its further integration into international society.65 UK firms played a crucial role in the pursuit of all three of these objectives. While some people, including Clare Short, suggested there was a contradiction between pursuing both economic advantage and the promotion of human rights, if one accepts Labour’s brand of liberal internationalism it is quite possible to pursue both simultaneously.66 Indeed, the more China engaged with the global economy, so the argument went, the more likely it was to develop liberal political institutions at home. Consequently, as Shaun Breslin has pointed out, not only did UK firms become increasingly important instruments for seizing the commercial opportunities offered by the Chinese market, they also became (consciously or otherwise) important political agents because of their long-term ability to inculcate liberal values into illiberal states and societies. In short, ‘whilst pursuing their own commercial activities’, UK firms were ‘effectively carrying out government policy in relation to China’.67 UK–China relations are a particularly good example of the importance of commercial diplomacy since, as the President of the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC), Lord Powell, put it, ‘A good bilateral relationship at the political level is very important for doing business in China – and probably more important in the case of China than most other


countries, simply because the role of the state and the government is so big.’68 In short, the UK government helped British firms obtain contracts within the Chinese market, while the firms themselves became crucial actors in the government’s policy of constructive engagement.69 According to Breslin, in UK–China relations, private commercial activities and official government policy could become intertwined in three main ways. First, if the Chinese authorities were upset by the activities of a firm they considered to represent the UK this could spill over into bilateral meetings between the two states. Second, Chinese authorities could reward or punish private firms based on national disputes. And third, private firms could be punished for perceived political slights as occurred when the former President of Taiwan, Lee Tenghui, made a private visit to the UK in 2000.70 While UK firms clearly succeeded in securing substantial contracts within the Chinese market, it is less clear what, if any, impact Britain’s commercial diplomacy had upon China’s political situation.71 Answering this question raises difficult methodological issues about the most appropriate way to measure such an amorphous concept as ‘liberal political change’ and requires far more detailed analysis than is possible here. Nevertheless, Blair’s government consistently rebutted charges that it sacrificed human rights promotion on the altar of commercialism by pointing out that dialogue over human rights continued bilaterally and multilaterally through the EU and in other forums (although not in a public manner); that educational exchange and training programmes, especially in the legal field, helped foster change in the Chinese bureaucracy and that further economic enmeshment of China into the global economy would enhance the prospects for liberal reform within the country.72 Some commentators accepted the government’s approach as a prudent balance of strategic, economic and humanitarian concerns.73 Others, however, doubted its ability to induce substantive political change. Breslin, for instance, doubted ‘that any policy of the UK government would have any real impact on China’s human rights practice at all’.74 While accepting that China has been gradually socialised into adopting the language of human rights and that the prospects for liberal political change in the longer-term are reasonable, in 2000, Rosemary Foot cautioned that substantive change on several core international norms was yet to come if it was to come at all.75 More damningly, Ming Wan argued that Europe’s dialogue with China over human rights had become ‘ritualistic’ thereby allowing China to sidestep the need for substantive change, especially on issues of civil and political rights.76


Blair’s government was also strongly criticised by Chinese human rights campaigners, such as Wei Jingsheng, for not doing more to censure the Chinese government at the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and for leaving ‘the victims of China’s human rights abuses in the lurch’.77 Whatever their disagreements, these assessments all acknowledge that for a variety of reasons the West, including Blair’s Britain, did not put strong public pressure on the Chinese authorities regarding human rights issues. It is clear from the preceding discussion that there are some important contradictions in Labour’s political economy that had repercussions for the party’s foreign policies. The self-imposed limits on the government’s neoliberalism did not go nearly far enough for significant segments of the Labour party caucus but they stemmed from the government’s desire to sell itself in different ways to different audiences. Not surprisingly, Blair’s government considered some audiences more important than others. In practical terms, the government used the concept of globalisation primarily as a justification for downplaying the scope for national variation in what it claimed was a global economy based on liberal competition. Consequently, the evidence suggests that Labour’s political economy was more akin to the so-called post-Washington consensus than a real third way between capitalism and socialism. The limits of Labour’s neoliberalism were evident in the potentially counter-productive nature of its reforms to the international financial architecture and its unwillingness to push through the MAI. Despite wanting to be seen in certain quarters as a champion of neoliberal principles, Blair’s government was also content to distort international markets through its commercial diplomacy. It was also quite happy to protect certain key industries from genuinely open competition. As Chapter 6 argues, this was abundantly clear in Labour’s defence policies where British arms dealers operated with the type of subsidies and government protection that were the very antithesis of neoliberal theory.

6 Defending the Realm … and the Defence Industry

Traditionally, the UK’s defence establishment has doubted the virtues of abstract theorising in favour of allowing the proximate military commanders to develop pragmatic solutions to particular problems. Not surprisingly, therefore, and with the exception of Douglas Hurd’s idea that Britain should try and punch above its weight, there have been few attempts to analyse the role of ideas in shaping UK defence policy.1 This does not mean, however, that UK defence policies have been devoid of ideas, far from it. At the macro level, as in foreign policy more generally, the most important ideas have revolved around the questions of whether Britain is a global or European power and how best to engage with the US?2 Labour’s answer to the second question was discussed in detail in Chapter 2. Characteristically, its answer to the first question was to suggest the UK was both. As Geoff Hoon put it, Britain ‘is a regional power with extensive global interests’.3 These questions remained at the centre of Labour’s defence policies but especially after 9/11 greater emphasis was placed on the pragmatic issue of how best to project UK military power around the globe as part of the US-led ‘war on terrorism’. Initially at least, part of ‘new’ Labour’s problem was ‘old’ Labour’s record on defence. Compared to the Conservative party, defence was not traditionally one of Labour’s strong points.4 It was therefore not surprising that while in opposition Labour was accused of being vague about how it would define UK defence policy if it won office, preferring instead to stick to the party line that it was calling for a review.5 However, this charge is somewhat unfair given that Labour issued some very clear statements of intent in the field of defence policy, including the defence industry.6 As these statements had hinted, once in office, Blair’s government was quick to tie the role of the armed forces to its 120

Defending the Realm and the Defence Industry 121

wider aspiration of acting as a force for good in the world. Consequently, it quickly discovered that ‘when the objective of policy is to make the world a better place, or at least less bad, then the tests are likely to be regular’.7 This was borne out by the high operational tempo sustained by the UK armed forces, especially between 1998 and 2003. At the peak of 1999, for example, approximately 47 per cent of all personnel were committed to operations when 20 per cent is normally considered comfortable.8 With regard to Labour’s four foreign policy commitments, Atlanticism clearly exerted a strong gravitational pull on its ideas about defence. Although Blair’s government consented to greater Europeanisation of its security policies than previous governments, the special relationship with the US remained central to British defence, especially in relation to NATO and the UK’s nuclear weapons. NATO, for instance, was still viewed as the primary instrument of collective defence and global crisis management, although as discussed in more detail in Chapter 8, Labour regularly bypassed the Alliance for small and medium level operations in favour of informal coalitions and ‘agile partnerships’. In short, while multilateralism remained central to certain areas of UK defence and security policy, it was often trumped by Britain’s most important bilateral relationship. Neoliberalism – or what some insiders describe as a form of management mentality – was most evident in the process of making and rationalising UK defence policy.9 Although the SDR10 was widely acknowledged as being more foreign policy led than the Conservative party’s previous effort, Labour placed considerable emphasis on achieving efficiency gains, using support services more effectively without tying up combat troops and making greater use of MOD assets and the reserves to achieve value for money. In terms of moralism, Blair’s government made it clear from the start that the armed forces would help promote its values abroad. Especially after 9/11, this was increasingly cast in terms of defending civilisation against the new barbarians. As discussed further in Chapter 8, Labour continued a much longer debate about what the UK armed forces are for. However, the pull of Atlanticism restricted the terms of this debate in some important respects, most notably concerning Britain’s nuclear deterrent. This chapter provides a critical analysis of these issues in four parts. The first section analyses the main themes evident in Labour’s attempts to rethink UK defence and security policies after years of what it saw as Treasury-led cuts under the Conservatives. This process of reflection began with the SDR and accelerated after 9/11. In particular, Labour emphasised the importance of flexibility, power projection, operations


other than war and achieving political effect with its armed forces. This type of thinking was also evident in the government’s approach to NATO, discussed in the second section. Here, like the US, Blair’s government decided that it was necessary to transform NATO in order to preserve its position as the primary instrument for collective defence and security in a globalising and post-9/11 world. This involved addressing NATO’s triple challenge of inclusion/exclusion, adaptation and Europeanisation.11 In other areas, however, Blair’s government retained more traditional policies. The third and fourth sections discuss arguably the two most prominent examples of continuity in Labour’s defence and security policies: nuclear weapons and arms exports. With regard to Britain’s nuclear deterrent and the issue of missile defence, Blair’s government adopted policies that maintained its uniquely close ties with the US and seriously undermined its claims that it was working towards fulfilling its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Similarly, despite adopting new regulatory criteria, Blair’s government retained a permissive approach that saw weapons exported to regions at war, regions on the brink of violent conflict and governments that systematically abused their own populations. Labour’s continued subsidising of the UK defence industry was not only based upon several myths about arms exports but it also contradicted its claims to support neoliberal principles of political economy.

Rethinking (some) UK defence policies While Blair was still leader of the Opposition, the new Chief of the Defence Staff, General Charles Guthrie, had met him at Claridges hotel and urged him to depart from the Conservatives’ tactic of cutting military expenditure without paying due attention to the UK’s security requirements. As it turned out, it would be four years before the defence budget would rise but perhaps as a result of this meeting, upon assuming office Blair appointed George Robertson to replace David Clark as Secretary of Defence.12 Robertson had a solid grasp of foreign and security issues, was a longstanding opponent of unilateral disarmament and was apparently well regarded in Washington.13 He was supported by Lord Gilbert, a right-winger on defence and former chair of the House of Commons Defence Committee who assumed his previous position as Minister for Defence Procurement, and Dr John Reid, who became Minister of State for the Armed Forces. On 28 May, Labour publicly launched the first SDR for 17 years. However, instead of the intended six months, the report, Modern Forces


for a Modern World, was not released until July 1998, partly because of the sheer scale of the issues involved and partly because it became wrapped up in the Comprehensive Spending Review.14 Since then, Labour presided over a relative flurry of official defence reviews including a White Paper in 1999, a New Chapter of SDR in July 2002 and a further White Paper, Delivering Security in a Changing World, in December 2003 (an addendum on Future Capabilities was published in July 2004). The SDR was – as it stated – a ‘first step’ in the process of rethinking UK defence policy over the next two decades. Its major conclusion was that although the UK faced no obvious ‘direct military threat’ its unique position within international society meant that its interests and security were likely to be threatened by ‘ethnic and religious conflict; population and environmental pressures; competition for scarce resources; drugs, terrorism and crime’.15 To combat such threats the SDR concluded that the armed forces must be able to undertake eight ‘core’ missions of peacetime security, security of the overseas territories, defence diplomacy, support to wider UK interests, peace support and humanitarian operations, regional conflict (both inside and outside the NATO area) and a strategic attack on NATO (which was considered far less likely than under the Conservatives). From this list a total of 28 military tasks were identified, each requiring specific capabilities. The UK’s armed forces were therefore to be reconfigured to be more mobile and better able to engage in joint operations (both between the services and with international allies). However, despite Labour’s claim that the armed forces should be a force for good throughout the world, in practical terms the expectation was clearly that operations were most likely in Europe, the Gulf, the Near East and Africa (arguably in that order). Although the SDR was not as radical as the government claimed, it is unfair to suggest that it offered nothing new.16 The SDR was novel inasmuch as it was generally led by foreign policy rather than Treasury concerns. It provided new information about the UK’s fissile material; it specified that joint commands must become the norm and called for a joint rapid reaction force that became operational in April 1999 (ahead of schedule); it envisaged an expansion in the regular army (although it dramatically cut the Territorial Army); it proposed to replace (by 2012) the three Invincible-class carriers with two larger carriers to project power ashore and it elevated ‘defence diplomacy’ to one of the armed forces’ core missions. Defence diplomacy was a new term for some old issues including arms control, non-proliferation, confidence building measures and what the SDR dubbed ‘outreach’, primarily training and assistance packages. The Review was also conducted with an unprecedented


degree of openness. This involved input from the FCO, taking some 500 submissions from outside official circles and holding an array of seminars. Nevertheless, it would be naïve to assume that the government in general and the MOD in particular ever lost control of the process.17 In other senses the SDR continued earlier trends that emphasised the need for rapid power projection and by and large accepted the cuts in the armed forces that had been made after the Cold War.18 It also made clear that the UK’s commitment to both NATO (as opposed to some European structure) and Trident were not up for serious debate (see later in the chapter). Critics also chastised the government for failing to ditch the Eurofighter project and to seriously analyse the environmental and economic trends that were likely to have a major impact on international security over the coming three decades.19 For its part, the House of Commons Defence Committee was concerned about the SDR’s consequences for ‘home defence’, the decision to cut the TA so significantly and the lack of discussion about the European dimensions of UK security and defence policy. The Committee also questioned whether the SDR had given enough thought to combating asymmetric threats such as terrorism and WMD proliferation.20 Set against this backdrop, the subsequent reviews of defence policy after 9/11 represent a continuation of the trends established in the SDR rather than any radical departures. The New Chapter provided a more detailed analysis of the threat from international terrorism, whereas the 2003 White Paper (and its addendum) concentrated upon how the armed forces could help achieve certain political effects in line with the government’s broader foreign policy objectives. In particular, four key themes were central to Labour’s attempts to rethink UK defence policy: flexibility, power projection, operations other than war and the importance of achieving political effect. An emphasis on conceptual and practical flexibility, or the need to ‘expect the unexpected’, has been at the heart of Labour’s defence policies. As Geoff Hoon put it in the aftermath of 9/11, ‘we should not get too fixed on particular possible future scenarios. For the future, what we need are flexible forces configured to be able to deal with many different scenarios’, potentially in many different parts of the world.21 Two years later, Hoon reiterated that ‘Flexibility is absolutely the key word. Flexibility of people, policy, structures and equipment supported by streamlined support processes.’22 The rationale behind this stance lay in the fact that the complexity and uncertainty of contemporary globalisation and interdependence have left policy-makers and analysts alike with a fundamental lack of knowledge about how the big issues related


to the environment, global demographics, disease, pollution, technology and war will play out in the future. The only certainty was that these threats should be engaged ‘up-stream’. Or, as George Robertson put it, we need ‘to go to the crisis rather than have the crisis come to us’.23 Consequently, the second theme of Labour’s defence policy was the need for power projection and expeditionary capabilities. Military power projection was to be achieved by restructuring the armed forces and making them increasingly inter-operable both between the different services and with the UK’s allies. The latter aim was particularly tricky given that the restructuring simultaneously left the UK armed forces more advanced than most of their European counterparts but falling further behind the technological developments available to the US military. The emphasis in the maritime environment was to deliver effects from the sea to the shore (including through the new joint strike fighter) and help gain access to operational theatres through amphibious capabilities and/or roll-on/roll-off vessels. In the air, the emphasis was on achieving offensive effect and providing strategic lift capabilities. The latter was to be achieved through the old C130 fleet (due to be replaced by the A400M in 2011) or with US assistance. On the ground, in one sense at least, the British army required the least restructuring of all given that its long history of imperial policing and counter-insurgency operations made it ideally suited for and experienced in expeditionary missions. The point of these expeditionary capabilities was to conduct seven ‘contingent operations overseas’, namely, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, evacuation of UK citizens overseas, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, power projection, focused intervention and deliberate intervention.24 Of course, the technical issues about how to project force overseas did not resolve the crucial political questions of when and where to do it (see Chapter 8). The third theme of Labour’s policies revolved around the question of what the UK armed forces were supposed to do when they were deployed abroad. The short answer was that they generally found themselves engaged in ‘operations other than war’ in a wide variety of theatres in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The army was particularly comfortable with these roles as they were fully inline with its minimum force philosophy, its history of counter-insurgency and imperial policing operations and its strong regimental structure.25 These traits had also helped the UK armed forces become one of the world’s most respected sources on peace support operations doctrine.26 That said, these developments were also influenced by broader and longer-term trends that were encouraging the development of a so-called Western

126 British Foreign Policy under New Labour Table 6.1 Strategic effects of UK military operations Strategic effect

Definition

Prevent

To stop or limit the emergence and development of crisis or conflict.

Stabilise

To set the secure and stable conditions required for political and economic action so as to bring a situation under control and return to a state of equilibrium and normality.

Contain

To actively limit or restrain the spread, duration or influence of an adversary or crisis.

Deter

To dissuade an adversary from a course of action that he would otherwise embark upon, by diminishing his expected gains and/or raising his expected costs.

Coerce

To use force, or the threat of force, to persuade an opponent to adopt a certain pattern of behaviour, against his wishes.

Disrupt

To disable an adversary’s capability, military activity can be undertaken to prevent him from functioning effectively by denying him his freedom of action.

Defeat

To reduce the effectiveness of an adversary so that he is no longer able to conduct combat operations.

Destroy

To so damage an enemy state or nonstate adversary that he is no longer militarily viable.

Source: Delivering Security in a Changing World: Supporting Essays (London: TSO, Defence White Paper, Cm 6041-II, Dec. 2003), p. 6.

way of warfare. This was characterised by a desire to keep wars localised, to target the enemy’s leadership cadres and means of political control rather than the entire state in question or even all its armed forces, and to use methods ostensibly intended to minimise both local civilian casualties and the risks to Britain’s military professionals.27 A fourth central theme of Labour’s approach was the emphasis it placed upon ensuring that the UK’s armed forces could achieve specific political effects in order to deliver security. Although in the aftermath of 9/11 government ministers and officials including Hoon and then Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Boyce, regularly spoke of five strategic effects, the 2003 White Paper listed eight strategic effects: prevent, stabilise, contain, deter, coerce, disrupt, defeat, and destroy (see Table 6.1). ‘Historically’, the current Chief of Defence Staff explained, military capability has been measured in terms of units or numbers of platforms. The push then was to acquire sheer volume – to ensure


success against possible opponents in a war of attrition. But in today’s environment, success will be achieved through an ability to act quickly, accurately and decisively so as to deliver critical effect at the right moment. We will speak in terms of capabilities and effects.28 Specifically, the defence establishment began to talk about NetworkEnabled Capability (NEC) and ‘network warfare’ – what one Liberal Democrat MP described as ‘a good new buzzword for an old military problem’.29 The critical elements in the envisaged NEC were ‘sensors’ (to gather information using C4ISR30), an effective network (to fuse, communicate and exploit the information) and ‘strike assets’ (to deliver the decisive action).31 The UK’s armed forces would only rarely be asked to achieve these effects alone. Instead, they would work to achieve them with allied armed forces, first and foremost, those within NATO.

NATO: still the primary instrument? As displayed prominently on the FCO website: ‘NATO is, and will remain, the primary guarantor of British defence.’ Labour also regards the Alliance as a crucial component of the special relationship with the US, ‘the principal institution binding Europe and the US together’ and the ‘pre-eminent’ alliance ‘upon which Europe and North America depends for collective defence and global crisis management’.32 Although in the early 1990s, the US and UK had argued for a European security architecture with a relatively unchanged NATO at its centre, just a few years later the enlargement and transformation of the Alliance had become the orthodox position.33 For the UK, since NATO no longer faced a serious threat of major conventional attack, it had to be transformed to remain effective. It had to become ‘flexible’.34 As Stuart Croft et al. suggested, during Labour’s period in office, NATO faced a triple challenge centred on issues of inclusion/exclusion, Europeanisation and adaptation.35 What was Labour’s stance on each of these issues? In terms of inclusion/exclusion two issues were central: the scope and pace of enlargement and NATO’s relations with Russia. With regard to enlargement, Blair’s government witnessed two waves with three new members joining in 1999 and a further seven joining in 2004. In the first wave, the UK, along with the US, had argued against inviting Romania and Slovenia to join the Alliance alongside the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.36 Since then, however, the UK became an ardent supporter of eastward enlargement. Blair’s government also played a pivotal role in


forging NATO’s new relationship with Russia. Specifically, in November 2001, Blair proposed a Russia/North Atlantic Council (NAC) as a potential alternative to Russian membership of NATO.37 In May 2002 the largely moribund Permanent Joint Council was replaced with the NATO-Russia Council, which allowed Russia to participate in the NAC’s discussions but without giving it a vote – and hence a veto – on policy. With regard to the Europeanisation of the Alliance, as discussed in Chapter 3, Labour broke the taboo on developing a military role for the EU but did so in such a way as to try and safeguard NATO and maintain its Atlanticist vision of European security. Blair’s government thus adopted the pragmatic approach that if NATO’s continued effectiveness required further Europeanisation to improve burden sharing and interoperability, then so be it.38 Spurred on by the crises in Albania (1997) and Kosovo (1998–99), Labour was fully supportive of ideas such as the Combined Joint Task Forces and the Berlin-Plus arrangements that were designed to help the EU utilise NATO structures and assets in operations where the Alliance as a whole did not want to take a lead. In terms of adaptation, two elements were crucial: external adaptation to allow NATO to project military power beyond its borders and internal adaptation to coordinate and integrate its members’ armed forces. NATO’s decision to take on threats such as terrorism and WMD proliferation meant that it had to be prepared to go out of area as it had done in the Balkans from the mid-1990s. But even NATO’s Balkan operations could not obscure the fact that especially after 9/11 the focus of US foreign policy had shifted away from Europe towards Central Asia and the Middle East. For different reasons, several West European states, especially the UK and France, also began to look for more ways of projecting military power beyond the NATO area. As a result, US and European foreign policies became less centred on NATO than they once were.39 Nevertheless, a transformed NATO, reconfigured for rapid, out of area action was still considered a crucial instrument of Western security policy. This was evident from NATO’s operations in the Balkans and Afghanistan and by late 2003 there was also talk of NATO operations in Israel-Palestine and Iraq. Although a loose interpretation of the Washington Treaty and NATO’s reluctance to define itself as a regional arrangement under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter eased its path to acting out of area, arguably the key practical development was Donald Rumsfeld’s September 2002 proposal that NATO should create a Response Force. In October 2004, NATO declared a force of 17,000 troops operational.40 According to the MOD, this force ‘will be a litmus


test of the Alliance’s commitment to implement Transformation’.41 The exact relationship of this force to the EU’s larger Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) was not discussed in great detail. As far as internal adaptation was concerned, NATO faced the difficult task of integrating different armed forces with at least three tiers of technological development: the US top-tier, the UK, France, Germany and Italy forming a second-tier and the rest comprising a third-tier. The focus here was on creating streamlined command structures through various training and assistance packages for new and aspiring members. Given the UK’s support for NATO’s transformation, it was not surprising that it consistently made large contributions to the Alliance’s operations. The UK ensured that almost all its armed forces and capabilities could be assigned to NATO in a crisis and it contributed approximately £110 million per year to the Alliance’s common funded budgets. Under Labour, the UK played leading initial roles in NATO operations in Kosovo and Macedonia. After Operation Allied Force, the UK assumed the lead role in NATO’s Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps, which led subsequent operations, and deployed over 10,000 personnel in the early stages of NATOs Kosovo Force (KFOR). Similarly, in late August 2001, UK troops led Operation Essential Harvest in Macedonia. After extensive negotiations, the two sides in Macedonia’s conflict agreed to the Ohrid peace plan under the terms of which a 3500-strong NATO peacekeeping force was deployed in order to voluntarily disarm the rebel National Liberation Army. Although that force was deployed for only 30 days, the UN endorsed the deployment of a smaller NATOrun security force, Amber Fox (c.750 troops). In December 2002, this was replaced by another NATO operation, Allied Harmony (c.470 troops). In March 2003, the EU’s Operation Concordia assumed NATO’s responsibilities (see Chapter 3). By this stage, the UK had reduced its troop numbers in NATO’s Balkan operations to approximately 2600. Overall, Labour supported NATO’s transformation into a larger and more versatile alliance. Although it remained the bedrock of Western collective defence, its agenda broadened to include a central focus on out of area crisis management and combating terrorism and WMD proliferation. This transformation was not without its hiccups, which occurred primarily over the Alliance’s relationship with the EU, the US decision to decline the offer of NATO assistance in Operation Enduring Freedom (see Chapter 2) and the public disagreements over Iraq in 2003 (see Chapter 9). Up to spring 2005, NATO’s transformation continued with the full support of Blair’s government.


Nuclear weapons Judged on its stated objectives, Labour’s record regarding the nuclear dimensions of foreign policy was distinctly mixed. On the positive side, of the five nuclear weapons states (NWS) defined by the NPT, Blair’s Britain possessed the smallest arsenal and was the first to publicly declare its stocks of unsafeguarded fissile material. The UK, along with France, also became the first NWS to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on 6 April 1998. However, two nuclear-related developments during Labour’s first two terms cast a large shadow of doubt over its claim that it is seriously working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons as required under the NPT. First, there was the issue of whether or not to replace the UK’s nuclear deterrent, Trident. Second, was the UK’s response to the US missile defence programme. I will briefly discuss each of these issues in turn. After a turbulent history on nuclear weapons, since 1994, the Labour party conference has voted to keep Trident. After the RAF’s last gravity bombs were taken out of service in August 1998, Trident constituted the UK’s only nuclear weapons system. The major factors behind Labour’s decision appear to be the considerable financial resources that had already been invested,42 the contribution Trident makes to maintaining the UK’s international status, the fact that other states still possess nuclear weapons and that nuclear proliferation remains a distinct possibility.43 As a result, nuclear policy played only a small part in the SDR. Nevertheless, the Review revealed four aspects of Labour’s position on Trident. First, Blair’s government argued it should not be included in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) negotiations. Second, the SDR released data on the UK’s holdings of fissile material. Third, the Trident force was placed on reduced alert status and the number of warheads was cut to what the government claimed was the ‘minimum necessary’ – under 200 compared to the 300 deemed necessary by the Conservatives. However, this obscured the fact that the arsenals outlined in the SDR actually provided far more destructive power than the UK previously possessed. This was because Trident submarines – unlike a Polaris boat – can strike up to 48 targets with the potency of three and a half Hiroshimas.44 Fourth, the SDR mentioned that Trident represented a sub-strategic as well as strategic nuclear deterrent. According to Michael Clarke, this implied the UK would use nuclear weapons if a nuclear device was used against British troops abroad or to deter other WMD – chemical and biological – being used against UK forces abroad. Clarke


concluded that the former scenario would be unwise while the latter would spark ‘complex games of micro-deterrence in regional crises’ that would make Cold War deterrence ‘appear very simple indeed’.45 Two years after the SDR, the government failed to clarify what it meant by a sub-strategic role for the Trident submarines when asked to do so by the Commons Defence Committee.46 Since the SDR, Labour’s decisions to retain Trident and extend its cooperation with the US relating to nuclear weapons and propulsion systems generated four ongoing controversies. First, as Michael Clarke has argued, in a unipolar world the rationale for the UK to possess a strategic nuclear deterrent ‘is increasingly weak’ and rests on unlikely scenarios that it will be ‘drawn into a nuclear crisis between its ally the US, and perhaps Russia or China; or else somehow being involved, perhaps with France, on behalf of the Europeans to confront a resurgent Russia making nuclear threats in ways that question our survival, and in the absence of US involvement’.47 Similarly, former diplomat, Brian Barder, suggested that the costs of running a nuclear deterrent far outweighed the benefits and Britain would be better off assuming a defence posture similar to Germany or Italy.48 Second, critics of the government’s nuclear policies asked how retaining a more destructive nuclear weapons system would help encourage other NWS to disarm or allow the UK to speak with authority on nonproliferation? As one commentator put it in 1998, if Blair’s government ‘believes that Britain still needs nuclear weapons for security, what arguments can it make to convince India, Pakistan, Iraq, North Korea, Iran and others [such as Israel] that they do not?’49 The implication of UK policies was that either the NWS or other nuclear weapons powers could not be deterred from using the weapons, and that the latter category could not be prevented from exporting the weapons technology to other states or non-state groups. The third and fourth controversies revolved around two legal aspects related to Trident. In particular, critics asked how Trident could be considered a force for good when according to a 1996 International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion ‘a threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law’?50 Blair’s government does not appear to have explicitly addressed this issue, even when it threatened the use of nuclear weapons in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq (see Chapter 9). Indeed, Geoff Hoon even used this ICJ opinion (incorrectly) to justify the UK’s right to use nuclear weapons against Iraq in ‘extreme self-defence’.51


The final ongoing controversy revolves around whether the UK should replace its four Vanguard class Trident submarines when their operating cycle expires in the 2020s? As Blair’s government acknowledged, a decision needs to be taken in the next parliament about whether Trident will be replaced.52 The most likely option for upgrading would be another US system. This was made possible in June 2004 when the US and UK extended their 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement (concerning matters related to cooperation on nuclear weapons and propulsion) until 2014. This was controversial in part because it was done without any serious debate within parliament,53 but also, and perhaps more fundamentally, because two legal experts advised that ‘it is strongly arguable that the renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement is in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’ (specifically Article I, which forbids the transfer of nuclear weapons or devices, and Article VI, which requires all NPT parties to pursue disarmament).54 Similar questions concerning the legality of UK policies were raised about the decision to support a US system of missile defence. In 1972, the US and Soviet Union signed the ABM Treaty. This codified two core beliefs about deterrence and banned the development of strategically significant ballistic missile defences. The first belief was that missile defences capable of protecting either superpower against large-scale attacks would destabilise the strategic balance because they undermined each side’s confidence in its nuclear deterrent. The second belief was that the deployment of large-scale defences would trigger an offensive arms race as each side sought to prevent the other from making itself invulnerable to attack. However, the ABM Treaty was not watertight. Article III recognised that not all defences were of strategic significance and allowed for some limited forms of missile defence. Consequently, in 1974 the Treaty was amended to allow each side to have 100 interceptors at one ABM site. The Treaty continued to work well after the end of the Cold War. After North Korea’s successful test of its Taepo Dong-1 missile in August 1998, however, Washington threatened that unless the Treaty was amended further it would consider unilaterally withdrawing from it on six-months notice citing events that jeopardise US ‘supreme national interests’ as permitted in Article XV.55 On 13 December 2001, George W. Bush’s administration duly signalled its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. The Labour government started its period in office as a staunch supporter of the ABM Treaty and an opponent of US missile defence proposals. By early 2003, however, its position had reversed. Signs were evident from mid-2000 that the UK was giving less and less prominence


to nuclear disarmament and greater credence to the US argument that its national security required the development of a missile defence system. As a result, in August 2000, the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) had urged the government to voice its concerns about missile defence in the hope (rather than the expectation) that the US government might consider an alternative course. ‘We are not convinced’, the Committee concluded, ‘that the US plans to deploy NMD represent an appropriate response to the proliferation problems faced by the international community’.56 Washington did not change course. Indeed, with George W. Bush’s arrival in the White House and Donald Rumsfeld’s appointment as Defence Secretary, US attempts to make missile defence a reality accelerated.57 As a result, by early 2001, the UK position shifted to embrace the development of ‘offensive and defensive systems’.58 Nevertheless, Blair’s government offered little detail about the rationale behind this shift until the MOD published Missile Defence: A Public Discussion Paper on 9 December 2002. The problem for the government’s critics was that this document was ‘not so much a serious attempt to inform and foster public debate as a PR document that could have been written by the US Missile Defense Agency’.59 Although the MOD paper invited comments from the public it gave no deadline for submissions. Only eight days later the government announced it had received a request from Washington to upgrade the early-warning radar facilities at RAF Fylingdales in Yorkshire for missile defence purposes.60 Shortly after MPs returned from the Christmas recess, Hoon announced that the government had ‘come to the preliminary conclusion that the answer to the US request must be yes’.61 Without giving details, Hoon suggested that supporting missile defence would bring ‘real potential benefits at essentially no financial cost’ to UK industry.62 Consequently, it came as little surprise when on 5 February 2003 Blair’s government officially acceded to the US request.63 Two main factors help explain Labour’s policy reversal. First, North Korea’s successful testing of its Taepo Dong-1 missile in August 1998 and the changed threat perceptions after 9/11 gave advocates of missile defence greater credibility within government circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Second, once the Clinton administration had signed the National Missile Defence Act in 1999, supporting this policy warts and all was seen as the best route to remaining Washington’s closest ally (see Chapter 2). Nevertheless, the decision generated considerable controversy, not least because it left Blair and Hoon in particular closer to the Conservative party’s position on missile defence than many of their


own MPs. In addition, even after the US had withdrawn from the ABM Treaty and despite various requests, the government did not accept the need for a parliamentary debate specifically on missile defence. Hoon did discuss the topic with the Defence Committee on two occasions prior to the decision but this did not prevent the Committee accusing him of displaying a ‘lack of respect’ for those opposed to the government’s decision and acting ‘in a way that has effectively curtailed [public] discussions’.64 The Committee concluded that the MOD handled ‘the public debate’ on the issue in a ‘deplorable’ manner.65 In a similar fashion, Labour party members were also denied the opportunity to debate missile defence at the party’s October 2001 conference. Although originally scheduled for debate, the topic of missile defence was sidelined by 9/11 and officially quashed by Labour’s leadership on the dubious procedural grounds that the issue was no longer ‘contemporary’.66 It remains too early to tell what impact the US decision to push ahead with missile defence will have on China, or, if China does increase its nuclear arsenal in response, what knock-on effects this will have on the relationship between India and Pakistan. However, contrary to Hoon’s declaration that missile defence is ‘in the interests of the UK and its people’,67 the decision to upgrade Fylingdales can be interpreted as an act of proliferation in itself. In this sense, it sat very uncomfortably with the UK’s obligations under the NPT and is likely to encourage the proliferation of WMD technology rather than curtail it. Overall, therefore, according to its stated objectives, Labour’s record on the nuclear dimensions of foreign policy was distinctly mixed. Arguably, the positive moves, such as providing greater transparency about the UK’s nuclear arsenal were heavily outweighed by the serious question marks over the legality of both the extension of the US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement and the decision to help develop a system of missile defence. On balance, it is thus highly likely that Labour’s policies hindered rather than helped the causes of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. In a similar fashion, despite its claims to the contrary, Labour’s policy on arms exports did little to stem the proliferation of conventional weapons.

Arms exports and ‘the politics of delusion’ Reflecting upon the implications of the 1996 Scott Report about UK arms exports to Iraq, Laurence Lustgarten concluded that the arms trade inevitably had at least three malign impacts upon British politics. First, it distorted policies in other areas such as asylum, overseas aid and


criminal law out of a desire to satiate large-scale buyers of UK arms. Second, it generated regular incidents that highlighted the largely secret and unaccountable power members of Britain’s military-industrial complex could exert within government to advance their corporate interests. Finally, activities common to the arms trade – dishonesty, secrecy and corruption68 – have consistently threatened the requirements of constitutional government in the UK.69 Unfortunately, I found virtually no evidence that these impacts stopped during Labour’s first two terms. Instead, when it came to the arms trade, Blair’s government consistently engaged in what Mark Phythian called ‘the politics of delusion’.70 It continued to provide UK arms exporters with extraordinary subsidies despite evidence that they did not benefit the national economy or jobs, they did not help maintain international peace and security, they did not bring political influence over their clients, they provided less and less spillover benefits to the civilian sector and they did not provide the UK armed forces with the best equipment available. Consequently, as Mark Curtis argued, Labour’s real policy on arms exports involved arming both sides in conflicts, human rights abusers, states that others stop supplying and the very poorest countries.71 Things could have been different. While in opposition, Labour clearly signalled its intention to promote the UK defence industry abroad. But it also claimed that UK weapons would not go ‘to regimes which would use them for repressive purposes or to threaten or invade neighbouring countries’.72 Once in office, Robin Cook quickly announced that the UK’s arms export criteria would be altered inline with his ideas about putting human rights at the heart of UK foreign policy. The end result, however, was a product of political compromise and an early example of the power the Prime Minister’s Office held over the Foreign Secretary. Cook’s initial FCO proposal went to No. 10 Downing Street only to be watered down ‘line by line’ by Blair’s principal private secretary, John Holmes.73 This quickly shattered the misleading impression that the FCO had the final say over UK arms exports. As it turned out, the criteria that Cook finally announced to the House of Commons on 28 July 1997 were vague, permissive and ambiguous, and gave no indication of how decisions would be made when different criteria conflicted.74 Little more than a year later, after a series of damaging scandals, most notably regarding UK arms exports to Indonesia75 and Sierra Leone (see Chapter 4), official talk about making arms sales a central part of the ‘ethical dimension’ of foreign policy was quietly dropped.76 This did not mean Labour’s record on arms exports was the worst imaginable (see Table 6.2). Amongst the weight of negative evidence,

136 British Foreign Policy under New Labour Table 6.2 UK arms exports and global market share, 1997–2003 (constant 2003 US$ million) Year

Value US$ million

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

8,581 4,462 5,699 6,746 4,758 4,932 4,700

Market Share % 17.2 7.8 12.9 18.7 11.5 11.8 16.3

Source: IISS, The Military Balance, 2004–05 (London: IISS/ Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 359.

there were some positive, albeit limited developments. First, by publishing annual reports on its arms exports and the criteria by which it (allegedly) made its decisions, Labour went further than previous governments to address the acute lack of public information about these issues. The catch was that the first such annual report (released in March 1999) was described by one respected expert as more an exercise in public relations than genuine openness.77 Subsequent reports increased the amount of information available by providing quarterly statistics running to several hundred pages, including at least some information (albeit only in percentage terms) about instances when the government rejected export licence applications. On 19 October 1999, in another positive if predictable and uncontroversial move, the government announced that it had destroyed its stockpile of anti-personnel landmines in accordance with the Ottawa Convention. However, Blair’s government did not go beyond Ottawa’s minimalist agenda. For instance, it left open the potential loophole of anti-tank mines, it continued to use cluster bombs (which delivered hundreds of de facto anti-personnel landmines to places such as Kosovo/Serbia and Afghanistan) and it could not guarantee that explosives exported from the UK would not end up in landmines.78 Third, there were cases on the periphery of the UK arms trade where licence applications were denied. In its first year in office, for instance, Labour rejected licence applications from Armenia, Croatia, Iran, Kenya, Nigeria, Paraguay and Sudan. These generally involved applications for police or internal security equipment.79 Moreover, despite Cook’s assertion that the UK would not ‘pick on the little guys and let the big guys go’, the vast majority of Labour’s refusals were from its smaller clients


who were among the world’s weaker states.80 Finally, during the UK’s EU Presidency in 1998, the Union adopted a Code of Conduct on arms exports. The idea was that EU states would ‘compete against each other on price and quality’ but not ‘on standards of human rights or democratic principles’.81 Although there were complaints that French pressure had weakened the Code,82 in several respects it was actually less permissive than Labour’s own criteria.83 As Labour’s second term was coming to an end, the major bones of international controversy were whether the EU Code would be reviewed and whether the Union would defy US pressure and lift its 16-year-old arms embargo on China imposed in protest at the Tiananmen Square killings of 1989. Leaving these developments aside, Labour’s policy on arms exports was plagued by at least four tensions: between championing the market and subsidising arms exporters; between promoting peace and supplying unstable regions with weapons; between claiming to provide the UK armed forces with the best equipment available while blocking international competition for MOD contracts and between claiming to be concerned about international development while reducing the debate about the arms trade to technical issues about ‘inhumane weapons’ and ‘inhumane actors’. I will briefly discuss each in turn. Labour’s mercantilist approach to UK arms exporters was massively out of step with its claims to champion neoliberal principles of political economy (see Chapter 5). No other sector of industry received such extensive and ultimately counter-productive government support. Like its predecessors, Blair’s government usually relied upon economic arguments that claimed arms exports brought commercial benefits to the UK economy such as highly skilled jobs;84 were a vital part of maintaining a healthy and competitive defence industrial base and could help develop spillover technologies for other sectors of industry. The weight of empirical evidence, however, suggests otherwise. In fact, UK arms exporters have traditionally been rather unsuccessful in the international marketplace when asked to compete on their own merits. When they did win sizable contracts, political factors usually played a central role. First, UK’s arms exporters received massive public subsidies and special insurance packages. Indeed, the evidence suggests they require such subsidies to function.85 Given Labour’s claim to champion neoliberal principles of political economy, it is interesting that if defence were not excluded from EU and WTO regulations for reasons of national security, much of this government support would be illegal.86 Moreover, historically the major ‘successes’ of UK arms exporters have been secured in states such as Saudi Arabia and Indonesia after US firms had refused to export


equipment. Even in the absence of US competition, these deals required large bribes.87 The second tension revolved around Labour’s claim that it was promoting international peace and security while simultaneously lobbying for UK arms exports to unstable regions (such as the Middle East, South Asia and Central Africa) and states with poor human rights records (including Indonesia, China, Turkey, Kuwait, Oman, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia). After 9/11, this tension intensified as Labour further relaxed its export controls to allies in the ‘war on terrorism’ with poor human rights records such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.88 Labour ministers employed various political and strategic justifications for these exports, including the one that they were necessary in light of Article 51 of the UN Charter and that they ‘contribute to international stability by strengthening bilateral and collective defence relationships’.89 In practice, however, it is impossible to determine exactly what role weapons play(ed) in maintaining international stability as opposed to other political, social and economic factors. As for bringing political and/or strategic influence, UK arms exports have turned successive governments, including Blair’s, into ‘dependent apologists for insecure governments’, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Pakistan.90 A third tension involved Labour’s claim that it provided its armed forces with the best equipment available while simultaneously distorting the international marketplace in favour of UK firms that may produce sub-optimal materiel. This was particularly evident in the case of Hawk jets (see later) and the SA80 rifle. But criticisms were also made regarding other government procurement policies. In July 1997, in order to save time and money Labour announced a ‘smart procurement’ policy as part of SDR.91 However, this sat uncomfortably with the heavily subsidised UK defence industry.92 In addition, by the end of 2002, and despite a change in accounting procedures to disguise cost and time overruns, most of the biggest ‘smart procurement’ projects were running either late or over budget, among the worst being the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft, the Meteor air-to-air missile and the Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft.93 Finally, Labour’s focus on the technical aspects of regulating the export of ‘inhumane weapons’ to ‘inhumane actors’ – what Neil Cooper called the ‘pariah agenda’ – moved debate away from the more systemic problems and opportunity costs of the arms trade, including how it hinders the prospects for international development (see Chapter 7).94 This was clearly evident in the way in which Blair’s government persuaded South Africa to purchase what by its standards was a huge arms package


from BAE Systems worth £5 billion (see Chapter 4). Again, a major factor in South Africa’s decision to buy from BAE Systems was the fact that it offered the best ‘offset terms’.95 This deal diverted much needed resources away from South Africa’s attempts to stem the tide of HIV/AIDS infections and was the source of numerous allegations of corruption against South African politicians. In addition, at the same time that the UK was trying to persuade Thabo Mbeki’s government to play a bigger part in peacekeeping and crisis management in Africa, the arms deal contained virtually no equipment that would help conduct such operations. Consequently, while setting back South Africa’s development prospects and doing little to enhance its security, the deal made a few well-placed individuals considerably richer. These tensions can be seen in the case of BAE Systems’ sale of Hawk jets to India. In September 2003, after 16 years of negotiations, several smaller arms deals and extensive lobbying by UK officials including Blair, Hoon, Straw and Prescott, BAE Systems secured a contract to sell 66 Hawk jets worth £1 billion to the Indian MOD (24 were to be delivered to India fully assembled, 42 would be built by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd in India).96 The deal was counter-productive for several reasons. First, it contradicted the government’s own criteria that it should not supply arms that were likely to be used to threaten neighbouring states. Only weeks after trying to sell India the Hawks in January 2002, UK ministers returned to Delhi to persuade the government not to start a war with Pakistan. By December 2002, the tension between the two states was so serious that Blair revealed he thought nuclear war between them was a real possibility.97 Nevertheless, the government claimed there was no contradiction between these two roles because the Hawk jets were only trainer aircraft. This ignored evidence that they could be used as fast ground-attack aircraft as happened over East Timor. Second, it was inconsistent with the government’s nonproliferation goals in the region since India used the Hawk jets to train pilots to fly its UK-supplied Jaguars, which are capable of carrying a nuclear payload. Finally, the contract also represented an astonishingly bad deal for the UK taxpayer. In July 2003 Blair’s government signed a deal with BAE Systems to provide 20 Hawk trainers (with an option of 24 more) for the RAF. This deal, said to be worth £3.5 billion over 25 years, was apparently motivated in large part by the UK’s desire to persuade India that the Hawk jet had a long-term future. The problem for the UK taxpayer was that the MOD’s deal with BAE Systems was not opened to tender and involved the Hawks being built with 30-year-old technology. Consequently, one analysis estimated that if the MOD had bought the


superior Italian Aermacchi 346, it would have received a better aircraft for approximately £1 billion less than BAE’s Hawks. The MOD–BAE deal was such poor value for public money that the Permanent Secretary at the MOD, Sir Kevin Tebbit refused to sign off the deal. Hoon subsequently overruled Tebbit in a decision that was referred to the National Audit Office and the Commons Public Accounts Committee.98 The persistence of these tensions in light of compelling evidence that UK arms exports do not benefit the national economy or jobs suggest that vested commercial interests, especially within BAE Systems, had a significant influence on government policy. Blair’s government did not integrate a ‘presumption of denial’ into its arms export policies.99 Instead, it continued the UK’s traditional approach of ‘commercial pragmatism’, where arms are sold to all potential clients unless there is an extremely good reason not to.100 Consequently, Neil Cooper’s verdict on Blair’s government remains pertinent at the end of its second term: ‘Judged solely on its own language, Labour’s arms sales policy is less ethical than its own policy in the 1980s, less ethical than that of a number of other states, less ethical than the EU code and little different from the ethically challenged approach of its Conservative predecessors.’101 The UK’s defence policies under Blair’s government involved elements of both change and continuity. The elements of change reflected the government’s desire to respond to unforeseen challenges, especially in the wake of 9/11. This brought the themes of flexibility, power projection, operations other than war and achieving political effect with the armed forces to the top of the UK’s defence agenda. In terms of Labour’s four foreign policy commitments, these policies were essentially about being able to enforce its moral values abroad. The elements of continuity within the UK’s nuclear policies owed a great deal to Labour’s Atlanticism in both its eventual support for US missile defence, the Mutual Defence Agreement and the likelihood of upgrading Trident with US assistance. With regard to the UK’s arms dealers, Blair’s government shelved its neoliberalism in favour of protecting the country’s defence firms from genuine international competition. As Chapter 7 demonstrates, this was in stark contrast to its policies on international development where constructing neoliberal governance structures in the world’s poorest regions and encouraging genuine international economic competition was said to hold the key to eliminating world poverty.

7 The Right (and Prudent) Thing to Do

While in opposition, Labour consistently criticised John Major’s government for its ‘indifference to Britain’s obligations to the world community’. Labour, in contrast, argued that ‘Membership of the world community carries with it responsibilities as well as rights. No responsible member of the world community can accept an outcome in which much of mankind lives and dies in hunger, and in which too many children are denied their chance to grow to adulthood.’1 Having assumed power, Blair’s government re-established a separate department, DFID, under Clare Short’s stewardship to help meet these obligations. With Blair’s support, DFID quickly set out a series of powerful moral and prudential arguments about the need to tackle underdevelopment and promote global justice. Short put the moral argument in the foreword to DFID’s 1997 White Paper. ‘It is our duty’, she wrote, ‘to care about other people, in particular those less well off than ourselves. We all have a moral duty to reach out to the poor and needy.’2 The prudential case appeared in the foreword to DFID’s 2000 White Paper. Here Blair highlighted the links between underdevelopment, injustice and the UK’s security arguing that, ‘Many of the problems which affect us – war and conflict, international crime and the trade in illicit drugs, and the spread of health pandemics like HIV/AIDS – are caused or exacerbated by poverty.’3 For Labour, therefore, the rationale for promoting international development and global justice was both moral and prudential. However, Blair’s government faced two major obstacles to live up to its statements of intent. First, the scale of the problems was immense. Consider this selection of statistics from the UN Development 141


Programme’s, Human Development Reports for 2002 and 2003.4 ●

●

● ● ●

●

●

More than 1.2 billion people survived on less than $1 a day, while approximately 2.8 billion survived on less than $2 a day. One in six of the world’s adults (876 million) were illiterate. Twothirds of them were women. 115 million children did not attend primary school. More than 1 billion people lacked access to safe water. 10 million children died of preventable diseases every year (that is approximately 30,000 every day). 500,000 women a year died in pregnancy and childbirth while 100 million ‘missing’ women would be alive but for infanticide, neglect and sex-selective abortion. By the end of 2000, 24.8 million people had died of HIV/AIDS. A further 42 million people had contracted the disease (39 million of whom were in the developing world).

Even more worrying was a trend identified by the Human Development Report 2003 that suggested international attempts to reduce these statistics were not working. Despite some improvements, notably in life expectancy and illiteracy, the Report noted that, ‘For many countries the 1990s were a decade of despair. Some 54 countries are poorer now than in 1990. In 21 a larger proportion of people is going hungry. In 14, more children are dying before age five. In 12, primary school enrolments are shrinking. In 34, life expectancy has fallen. Such reversals in survival were previously rare.’5 Thus while many donor governments were claiming to be champions of development, the lives of many of the world’s poorest people were getting worse. This was indicative of Labour’s second major problem regarding its international development policies, namely, the glaring tension between the UK’s position as one of the main beneficiaries and managers of the current world order and its simultaneous desire to be seen as a champion of the planet’s poor and oppressed. Bluntly stated, although our knowledge of the causal links remains sketchy, it is entirely possible that the world order Labour helped sustain and manage was actually causing poverty. As Thomas Pogge argued, there is a simple two-part explanation for this possibility. First, the details of this order were fixed in international negotiations in which rich governments ‘enjoy a crushing advantage in bargaining power and expertise’. Second, ‘our representatives in international negotiations do not consider the interests of the global poor as part of their mandate’.6 The situation was further

The Right (and Prudent) Thing to Do 143

exacerbated by the norm of non-intervention that helped a variety of authoritarian regimes to impoverish their own populations with few international sanctions (see Chapter 8). As a result, Labour’s claim to be champions of development and justice attracted criticism as a rather feeble attempt to conceal how successive UK governments helped sustain and manage a fundamentally unjust and iniquitous world order.7 This chapter examines these issues by providing a critical analysis of Labour’s policies on international development and global justice. It does so in four parts. The first section focuses on DFID’s approach to international development as set out in its two White Papers of 1997 and 2000. In particular, I examine four central themes of Labour’s approach: raising the profile of international development issues, its search for joined-up policies, its focus on poverty alleviation and its strategy of promoting partnerships for development. The remaining sections discuss three dimensions of Labour’s approach to global justice. The second section examines the economic dimension of global justice by looking at Labour’s policies on debt relief. The criminal dimension of global justice is analysed in the third section through a discussion of the Pinochet case and Labour’s role in the establishment of the ICC. The final section explores questions of environmental justice through an analysis of the Blair government’s policies on climate change. With regard to the government’s four underlying foreign policy commitments, in one sense this chapter represents an inquiry into the ethical limits of its brand of liberal internationalism. Arguably, the central impetus behind the government’s decision to raise the profile of international development and global justice issues was its recognition that in an interdependent world the UK’s interests were inextricably bound up with those of international and world society more generally. As Blair mentioned in 1999, our actions are guided by a more subtle blend of mutual self interest and moral purpose in defending the values we cherish. In the end values and interests merge. If we can establish and spread the values of liberty, the rule of law, human rights and an open society then that is in our national interests too. The spread of our values makes us safer. As John Kennedy put it ‘Freedom is indivisible and when one man is enslaved who is free?’8 As discussed here, it was telling that Blair talked about spreading ‘our’ values as if they should be universally accepted. On the other hand, the international human rights standards to which Blair alluded were not


just negotiated by Westerners. Atlanticism was also evident but played a backseat role inasmuch as Blair’s administration, like all UK governments since 1945, supported the fundamentals of US hegemony. At best its international agenda was reformist. At worst, it maintained the fundamentals of an unjust and iniquitous world order. Multilateralism was central to Labour’s international development policies and appeared in a variety of forms, most notably the formation of so-called partnerships for development that Blair’s government sought to build with a wide range of actors within the UN system and beyond. Finally, and not surprisingly given its approach to international political economy (discussed in Chapter 5), neoliberal ideas provided the framework within which Labour’s approach to development and global justice were embedded.

DFID’s world In 1964, Harold Wilson’s Labour government created the first Ministry for Overseas Development. Since then, a trend developed in British politics whereby Labour governments retained a separate ministry for international development whereas Conservative governments subsumed development policy within a semi-autonomous wing of the FCO known as the ODA. In 1997, senior FCO figures and the new Foreign Secretary were initially unhappy with Blair’s decision to continue this trend. They apparently disliked the idea of losing a significant part of their budget and what Cook considered ‘the good news side’ of his department.9 However, the incoming government’s commitment to raise the profile of international development issues made it virtually impossible not to create a separate ministry. Although there was some initial surprise about Blair’s decision to make Clare Short the new Secretary of State, she quickly converted international development ‘into a weighty subject’ and earned a reputation for being ‘the conscience of the Blair cabinet’.10 Upon entering office, Short promptly announced that the UK would rejoin UNESCO (Britain had left the organisation in 1985 citing corruption, mismanagement and nepotism as its reasons) and set about defining her new department’s remit. The latter task inevitably involved stepping on the toes of some other government ministers (see later in the chapter). As noted in Chapter 4, Short created a particularly big role for DFID in African and Commonwealth affairs. For example, when Blair pledged to make Africa a major priority for Labour’s second term he first turned to Short rather than the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Similarly, Short was the first


Cabinet minister to visit the DRC in August 2001 and was Blair’s principal adviser at a brainstorming session he organised on Africa with the presidents of Nigeria, Senegal, Mozambique, Ghana, Tanzania and Botswana only a week after 9/11. The FCO, in contrast, sent only a junior minister, Baroness Amos.11 Consequently, Short’s resignation over the Iraq war in May 2003 reduced DFID’s visibility. Under first Baroness Amos and then Hilary Benn, DFID continued on a similar course but carried less weight within Blair’s Cabinet. In many respects, DFID’s approach was not as new as Blair’s government suggested. For one thing, DFID’s mission statement was almost identical to the ODA under the previous Conservative government.12 This was unsurprising given that DFID, like the ODA before it, closely modelled its approach on a variety of documents from the OECD and the World Bank.13 In particular, DFID’s two White Papers published in 1997 and 2000 largely echoed the policies contained in the Bank’s World Development Reports of 1991, The Challenge of Development, and 2000/ 2001, Attacking Poverty.14 DFID’s first White Paper was quickly produced after consultations within Whitehall and with relevant NGOs. The latter were particularly happy to be included after what one commentator described as ‘20 years of political marginalisation’ under the Conservatives.15 Its main purpose was to develop a poverty-focused agenda and to help persuade several other OECD members to do likewise.16 It also defined some key objectives (largely culled from the UN conference on development in Copenhagen in 1995) that reflected Short’s desire to base DFID’s work around achieving measurable targets. Among the most important were: ●

●

●

● ●

Reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide living in extreme poverty by 2015. Achieving universal primary education by 2015 and eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005. Reducing by three-quarters maternal mortality rates by 2015, and by two-thirds the mortality rates of infants and children under five. Achieving universal access to reproductive healthcare by 2015. Implementing national strategies for sustainable development by 2005.

These objectives were relatively uncontroversial although DFID was criticised for being unrealistic and ‘retreating from specifics’.17 On the other hand, the White Paper did set some standards against which future performance could be judged.18 The problem was, in the unlikely


event these targets were actually met it would prove virtually impossible to determine how much of the credit should be given to DFID’s activities. The second White Paper did not depart from the vision set out in the first one. Indeed, Adrian Hewitt of the Overseas Development Institute described it as rather vague, ‘less a policy announcement than … a wideranging essay on the subject of globalisation’.19 For Hewitt, the reason for this was that whereas DFID’s social development advisers ‘had monopolised Clare Short’s attention at the time of her first White Paper’, the second time around it was the department’s economists that got the upper hand. Hewitt bolstered his conclusion by pointing out that the 2000 White Paper was justified on two main grounds. First, to strengthen the case for joined-up government in the wake of a UNESCO report published in June 2000 that concluded Britain had ‘a growing problem of child poverty, which is now one of the most severe among industrialised nations’. It would be difficult for the UK to speak with an authoritative voice about poverty alleviation abroad if it could not put its own house in order. Second, it represented a response to the antiglobalisation arguments that had sparked the so-called Battle for Seattle in late 1999. In particular, it sought to rebut environmentalist critiques of ‘development’, to show that welfare and redistribution policies required economic growth to be successful internationally, to defend the forward march of capitalism and to reiterate the importance of a poverty-focused agenda and outline how globalisation should be managed to promote this agenda effectively.20 Not surprisingly, these conclusions were later supported albeit in a slightly qualified manner in the DTI’s White Paper, Making Globalisation a Force For Good and its supporting paper, Globalisation and Liberalisation (both published in July 2004). Primarily focused upon the UK rather than the developing world, the two papers reiterated the familiar message that further liberal globalisation would bring dramatic benefits to all. They also sounded a more explicit note of caution that the transition towards a liberal economy would also prove difficult and destabilising if it did not take place within a suitable institutional context. Four themes stand out about DFID’s approach to international development and the rest of this section critically analyses each in turn. Labour’s first central theme was to reverse the decline in aid spending under the Conservatives. When Blair’s government arrived in office, the UK’s aid/GNI ratio was 0.26 per cent.21 By 2004 it had increased to 0.47 per cent.22 Moreover, as outlined in the 2004 Comprehensive Spending Review, the UK’s overseas aid budget is supposed to rise still further to meet the UN’s recommended target of 0.7 per cent by 2013.


Although strictly speaking the rise in aid spending achieved Labour’s official goal, for a government that consistently claimed to be a champion of international development this is an embarrassing statistic. Furthermore, even when judged against other members of the OECD, in 2003 the UK was only eleventh out of 22 states when ranked according to aid/GNI ratio.23 A second central theme was Labour’s claim that it would focus its international development policies on reducing poverty. As Clare Short put it in 2002, ‘I’m trying to build an international development system that will systematically reduce abject poverty until it is no longer part of the human condition. We are living in a time when this is achievable.’24 Publicly declaring such objectives and stating that they were attainable was a necessary first step given that extensive poverty continues in large part because ‘we’ do not find its eradication morally compelling.25 Yet it was clearly not sufficient. Indeed, Short was open about the fact that poverty was unlikely to be dramatically reduced without far greater levels of political commitment from the world’s richest states.26 It is also important to recall that although Blair stressed that eliminating world poverty was the ‘greatest moral challenge facing our generation’, his government’s objective remained limited to halving the numbers of people living in absolute poverty by 2015.27 This means that even if the government achieved its objective, some 600 million people – or one person in ten – would still reside in absolute poverty while some 2.2 billion people would still live on less than $2 per day. Should a government that is content with these statistics seriously be called a champion of international development? To help meet the government’s poverty alleviation targets in 2003 the Treasury and DFID proposed a model for an international finance facility aimed at securing long-term funding for poor states by promoting more transparent economic policies and procedures, fairer terms of trade for developing states, the adoption of high standards of social responsibility by businesses and anti-corruption and ‘country-owned’ poverty reduction strategies in developing states.28 This was in keeping with the government’s position since 1997, namely, that absolute poverty could be halved if globalisation was managed according to neoliberal principles to help build what were alternatively referred to as ‘effective’, ‘competent’ and/or ‘virtuous’ states in the developing world. The problem was that the trend identified earlier in the Human Development Report 2003 indicated that these neoliberal ‘solutions’ were failing literally billions of the world’s poorest people. In order to effectively manage globalisation abroad, Blair’s government was well aware that it needed to coordinate its policies at home. Hence


a third theme of Labour’s approach was creating a joined-up development policy in harmony with other policy sectors such as trade (especially in agriculture and arms). Initially, there were encouraging signs. In November 1997, for instance, an Inter-Governmental Working Group on Development was established involving nine government departments including the Cabinet Office and the Export Credits Guarantee Department. However, the drive for coordination inevitably meant someone had to be ‘coordinator’ and others ‘coordinated’. As a result, DFID became regularly embroiled in a variety of Whitehall turf-wars including with the MOD over training armies and promoting security sector reform (notably in Sierra Leone); with the DTI over the extent to which trade was a development issue and because Short consistently refused to lobby on behalf of UK firms on her trips abroad and with the FCO over the correct priorities for the joint DFID–FCO–MOD Conflict Prevention Pools (see Chapter 4). Even the Department of Education was chastised for ‘pinching teachers from poor countries’.29 The same could have been said about the Department of Health and nurses from poor countries. In early 2000, a particularly acrimonious spat saw DFID arguing with the MOD over the cost of helicopters to help assist the victims of flooding in Mozambique. Short initially rejected the MOD’s offer of £2.2 million for four helicopters and their support facilities as too high. After the row became public, the price was halved, although it still took seven days to get the Royal Navy’s Fort George to arrive in Mozambique.30 In contrast, after some initial squabbles with the Treasury over who should represent the UK in the World Bank,31 the two departments worked closely on the issue of debt relief and shared similar views about globalisation.32 Linked to the theme of trying to engineer joined-up government was Labour’s emphasis on building partnerships with other governments (both rich and poor), multilateral development agencies, NGOs and TNCs. While the government spoke of such partnerships in consistently glowing terms, Mark Curtis interpreted the same developments as a worrying ‘new trilateralism’ where government and big business had succeeded in co-opting activist NGOs to promote further privatisation in the world’s poorest countries. For Curtis, government and the TNCs were doing nothing unusual – they had always been interested in opening up markets in the developing world (see also Chapters 4 and 5). The co-option of development NGOs, on the other hand, was a disturbing new trend.33 Although it is unwise to generalise about NGO–government relationships, there was undoubtedly a much greater synergy between certain activist NGOs and the Labour government than during the


Conservative years.34 There was also evidence concerning the UK’s ‘partnerships’ with developing states that supports the broad thrust of Curtis’ argument. In the world of development, the idea of ‘partnerships’ stretches back to at least the 1969 Pearson Report, Partners in Development and has been a central feature of the OECD’s strategies since the mid-1990s. The problem with Labour’s approach to partnership was that it involved precious little genuine dialogue with the ostensible recipients (i.e. a discussion where all participants are willing to learn from each other and change their position accordingly). In short, Labour’s new partnerships looked a lot like old-style conditionality. As Simon Maxwell and Roger Riddell suggested, Labour’s approach could easily sound like: ‘we know how best to achieve development. We know how you should alleviate poverty. Either you accept the approaches which we think are right for you or you will not qualify for a long-term partnership with us. If you do not accept our view of development, then we will not provide you with aid’.35 Similarly, David Slater and Morag Bell persuasively highlighted the ways in which Labour’s notions of partnership, diffusion and surveillance were couched in educational metaphors, implied an essentially one-way process of learning and situated developing states as being passive recipients of Western management and monitoring.36 Even The Economist pitched into these debates against DFID, suggesting that its methods ‘smack[ed] of worthy westerners lecturing the natives in good manners’.37 Arguably, the key pieces of evidence against Labour are the poverty reduction strategy programmes – the centrepiece of DFID’s poverty alleviation programme. According to Blair’s government, these are designed in partnership with individual developing states to meet their unique needs. There are, however, at least two major problems with this description. The first is that the programmes adopt what Thomas Pogge called the ‘explanatory nationalism’ approach. That is, in focusing their attention on the national level – usually on issues of bad governance and corruption – they downplay the international and structural causes of poverty such as unfair terms of trade and the undemocratic organisation of the major institutions of global governance.38 The second problem is that these programmes were not the result of genuine partnerships but were often ‘mostly written’ by the IMF and World Bank.39 Indeed, the fact that the IMF published a handbook showing governments how to write them and that they all set the same targets and used the same precise vocabulary suggested that none of the programmes were ‘home grown’ and that local ‘ownership’ remained an illusion.40 In Labour’s


defence, it is important to note that presumably very little poverty alleviation would have been achieved if corrupt and authoritarian governments were allowed to write their own conditions for receiving aid. Consequently, Blair’s government should have been clearer about which foreign governments it intended to engage in a genuine partnership about reducing poverty – and then genuinely engage them – and which governments it considered beyond the pale. Because it did not do so it received substantial criticism for being both patronising and ineffective. On the evidence available up to spring 2005, DFID is highly unlikely to achieve any of the major targets it set out in its 1997 White Paper – and even if these are met subsequently it will be impossible to know for certain how important DFID’s activities were in achieving them. The situation is slightly more clear-cut on some key issues of global justice. Once again, however, Labour’s record is mixed as the following analysis of the economic, criminal and environmental dimensions of global justice demonstrates.

Economic justice: debt relief41 Labour’s record on whether to cancel the debts owed to it by the world’s most indebted states provides an important insight into its approach to global justice and how deep its commitment to liberal internationalism actually runs. Blair’s government inherited a legacy of several multilateral initiatives on debt relief that had been proposed since the late1980s. Chief among these were the terms agreed at Toronto (1988), Trinidad (1990) and Naples (1994).42 These initiatives eventually concluded that the debts concerned had to be reduced rather than just rescheduled. Arguably, the most important package prior to Labour’s arrival in office came in October 1996 when the IMF and World Bank adopted the HIPC Debt Initiative. Crucially, this broadened the scope of the debate beyond official bilateral debt relief to include multilateral loans. To be eligible for relief, HIPCs had to follow (a potentially) sixyear programme of satisfactory economic and social reform judged according to criteria laid down by the IMF.43 The problem was that under these criteria, by 1999, only four of the 41 HIPCs deemed eligible for the scheme had actually received any concrete relief. Faced with this poor performance and a political storm stirred up by a variety of activist NGOs, Blair’s government pushed to reform the HIPC Initiative. The political momentum created for HIPC reform owed a great deal to the activities of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition. Officially formed on 13 October 1997, the Coalition called for the richest countries to cancel the


unpayable debts owed to them by the world’s poorest states.44 The Jubilee 2000 UK Coalition (one of 69 worldwide) comprised of 110 different organisations including trade unions such as Unison and the British Medical Association, development NGOs such as Oxfam, the World Development Movement, Christian Aid, Cafod and Tearfund, church groups, student organisations and celebrities and musicians including Bono and Bob Geldoff. Initially, the Coalition found it difficult to attract media attention. The first UK editorial on debt, for instance, did not appear until 31 December 1997 (in The Guardian). Undeterred, the Coalition developed a series of detailed and powerful arguments that were matched by the size and efforts of its support base. At the G-7 summit in Birmingham (May 1998), for instance, 70,000 campaigners turned out to lobby the state leaders and a further 50,000 did the same the following year in Cologne. In addition, the Coalition presented G-7 leaders with a petition supporting their campaign signed by 24,100,000 people, while in the UK, the Treasury received 681,102 postcards, letters and e-mails about debt relief between 1998 and 2000 alone. Labour’s first initiative on debt relief came from Gordon Brown at a meeting of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers in Mauritius in September 1997. Brown’s ‘Mauritius Mandate’ set out a five point plan in which the UK would: (1) contribute $10 million towards reducing Uganda’s debt to the African Development Bank; (2) cancel the debts owed to it by middle-income countries provided they remained committed to ‘sound and transparent policies which improve the situation of their people’; (3) finance technical assistance to Commonwealth states; (4) contribute to the IMF Trust Fund without conditions and (5) only grant export credits to those HIPCs that supported productive expenditure and promoted social recovery and development.45 The Mauritius initiative was followed by a further proposal on multilateral debt relief tabled at the Birmingham G-8 summit in May 1998. This was blocked by Germany and Japan. Undeterred, the following year, Brown and Clare Short succeeded in getting a more substantial Four Point Plan accepted in both the G-8 summit at Cologne and at the IMF and World Bank annual meeting in October. This called for the cancellation of $50,000 million of debt by the end of 2000 and a new Millennium Trust Fund to help finance the process. Essentially the plan involved persuading developed states to increase aid flows to poor countries to $60,000 million per year in order to help tackle mass poverty, getting UK NGOs to raise $1000 million to contribute to the campaign and getting the IMF to sell $1000 million of its gold reserves to fund the reforms to the HIPC Initiative.46


Although various newspaper headlines encouraged the misleading impression that the UK had ended the debt crisis, the process soon stalled.47 The first major problem occurred in 2000 when the US Congress refused to support President Clinton’s pledge of $600 million to the Millennium Trust Fund. This prompted several other governments, including Japan, to renege on their earlier promises. The backsliding and delays continued with the result that by December 2000, only $11.9 billion of the $376 billion owed by the ‘Jubilee 52’ states in 1998 had been cancelled.48 For its part, by the end of 1999, Blair’s government had contributed over $385 million to the Trust Fund and Brown had committed the UK to cancelling 100 per cent of all bilateral debts owed to it by the HIPCs.49 In addition, at Jubilee 2000’s farewell rally, Brown announced that from 1 December 2000, ‘I will renounce our right to receive any benefit from the historic debt owed by all 41 most indebted countries. From today, all debt payments received by us will be held in trust for poverty relief, paid when poverty reduction plans are agreed and backdated to this day.’50 From the vantage point of spring 2005, the concrete results of these various initiatives, although positive, should not be overstated. By this stage, the G-8 leaders had cancelled only $46 billion of the $100 billion of HIPC debts they had promised to cancel. It was particularly disappointing that Blair’s government failed to simply cancel all debts owed to it rather than phasing relief in over time. According to the Jubilee Debt Campaign and the World Development Movement, it would cost the UK only £1.3 billion (or £2.85 per person a year for ten years) to unilaterally write off its share of the outstanding multilateral debts owed by 42 eligible HIPCs.51 Also disappointing was the way in which the ostensibly extra £100 million earmarked for debt relief by the Chancellor in autumn 2004 was actually to come out of the existing aid budget.52 How should we assess Labour’s initiatives on debt relief? On the positive side, after prompting from NGOs such as Jubilee 2000, Brown and Short played a leading role in the inter-governmental debate on debt relief and made it a legitimate goal of foreign policy. However, Labour’s efforts were both limited and problematic in several respects. First, as Will Hutton pointed out in late 1999, ‘Writing off old loans costs us nothing in public-accounting terms because the capital transaction [the loan] was counted (madly) as a current, cash expenditure that formally we never counted on seeing again. Our international liberalism, cancelling debt obligations that we never accounted for and are not receiving anyway, is thus completely cost-free.’53 Second, Labour’s approach was reformist rather than revolutionary and remained embedded within neoliberal assumptions. In particular,


HIPCs still had to swallow a large dose of neoliberal adjustment medicine before they would be considered eligible for relief. This raised two questions: did neoliberal adjustment actually help alleviate poverty and how ethical was it to use the carrot of debt relief to impose externally devised criteria on poor states? In answer to the first question, the case of Uganda, the first state to have its debt ‘relieved’ under the enhanced HIPC Initiative, suggested neoliberal reforms and debt relief did not lead directly to poverty alleviation. After winning consistent praise from successive UK governments, the World Bank and IMF for undergoing extensive neoliberal reforms, and after reaching its Completion Point in May 2000, Yoweri Museveni’s government was actually left $10 million a year worse off after its ‘relief’ package and still left with annual debt repayments of $120 million.54 In answer to the second question, critics of the enhanced HIPC Initiative were clear that it placed debtor states in a highly unsatisfactory situation. As Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi – touted by Blair as one of Africa’s most progressive leaders – argued in May 1999, the HIPC Initiative was ‘being used as the whip to enforce unquestioning acceptance of the economic orthodoxy – the so-called “Washington consensus” – that is being promoted by some international institutions … The choice we are left with under HIPC is thus to either abandon all independent and rational thinking in economic policy making or wallow in the quagmire of unsustainable debt’.55 Ironically, another unintended negative consequence of the ‘drop the debt’ campaign was that it often pushed the issue of poverty eradication and the plight of what Robin Marris called the ‘left-out-poor’ to the international sidelines. The problem was that four-fifths of the people classified by the UN as living in absolute poverty did not live in the ‘Jubilee 52’ states. Thus, while most of the world’s poor lived in Asian countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia, because these states had not incurred massive levels of debt they received very little attention from the campaign for debt relief. Even in Africa, where the majority of HIPC states were located, ineligible states such as Nigeria, Eritrea, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe had large numbers of people living in absolute poverty.56 Finally, debt relief on its own did nothing to alter the structural imbalances within the global economy – acknowledged by DFID (see earlier) – which made the accrual of unpayable debts likely in the first place. Arguably, resolving such imbalances would require greater democratisation of the international financial institutions and the major structures of global governance. Recalling the problems with DFID’s notions of partnership, diffusion and management discussed earlier, however, it was not surprising that little evidence of such democratisation was forthcoming.


Criminal justice: the Pinochet case and the International Criminal Court After the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda during the mid-1990s, much of the debate about international crimes focused on the exercise of jurisdiction by the two ad hoc tribunals established to try those charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. While these tribunals were undoubtedly better than nothing, they did not constitute an ideal mechanism to help deter would-be perpetrators of international crimes. As Robin Cook suggested to the UN General Assembly in 1999, the need to counter the existing ‘culture of impunity’ for those who had broken international humanitarian law was not just about prosecuting perpetrators after the fact through ad hoc tribunals. It was also necessary to establish a permanent court as a vital part of wider international attempts to prevent violent conflicts erupting in the first place.57 During Labour’s period in office, two issues related to international criminal justice proved particularly important: the Pinochet case (1998–2000) and the negotiations that eventually led to the establishment of the ICC on 1 July 2002. This section briefly analyses the Blair government’s stance on these two issues. In October 1998, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the former dictator of Chile was arrested by the Metropolitan Police at the request of a Spanish magistrate (the UK subsequently received similar requests from Switzerland, France and Belgium).58 He stood accused of knowingly permitting the disappearance, elimination, torture and kidnapping of thousands of people both before and during his time as Chile’s head of state. Pinochet’s arrest left Blair’s government and the UK judiciary facing the delicate political and legal issues involved in deciding whether or not to extradite him to stand trial in Spain. First, the case involved a choice between competing conceptions of the international legal order. In simple terms, the choice was whether or not heads of state should remain immune from prosecution for international crimes committed against innocent victims. In particular, it provided an important barometer of how far the contemporary international legal order had embraced an international constitution in relation to international crimes.59 Second, the case challenged judges and politicians in the UK to exercise the universal jurisdiction available to them in such matters.60 Initially, the government’s decision not to take a position on the question of immunity for this former head of state or allow a private prosecution suggested it would have preferred to see Pinochet returned


to Chile. It also stood in stark contrast to the stance it had adopted earlier that year in the negotiations to establish an ICC where Blair’s government had committed itself to denying even current heads of state immunity before domestic or international courts.61 As it turned out, Pinochet was subjected to three separate but related hearings and a medical examination before being permitted to return to Chile on the grounds that he was mentally unfit to stand trial. On 25 November 1998, by a majority of three to two, the Judicial Appeals Committee of the House of Lords overturned the High Court’s earlier decision to grant Pinochet immunity from extradition with respect to his alleged crimes under international law (this was known as Pinochet I ). This meant that under the Extradition Act 1989 the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, had to decide whether to continue the extradition process or release Pinochet. On 9 December, Straw confirmed that the decision was a judicial not political matter and that the extradition process should, therefore, be allowed to continue. However, when Pinochet appeared before a magistrate (at Pinochet II) his lawyers managed to overturn the Pinochet I judgement on the grounds that the hearing had been tainted by the appearance of bias. The appearance of bias in question was that Lord Hoffman (a member of the Judicial Appeals Committee) served as a director of the Amnesty International Charity Ltd while Amnesty had been intimately involved with Pinochet’s case. Since this was the first time a member of the Lords’ Committee had been accused of appearance of bias, no formal procedure existed to hear such an appeal. Nevertheless, Britain’s unwritten constitution allowed sufficient flexibility for a new seven-judge panel to be constituted to re-hear the Pinochet case in what would become Pinochet III. Once again, and on the same day (24 March 1999) as NATO began bombing Kosovo, the Law Lords found by a majority of six to one that the extradition process could proceed. This time around, however, the Law Lords suggested that only the charges of torture brought by Spain would meet the criteria of an extradition crime. Moreover, they held (by a slim majority) that only acts of torture committed after the three states concerned (the UK, Chile and Spain) had ratified the 1984 Convention against Torture would be eligible as potential extradition crimes (the UK was the last to ratify the convention on 8 December 1988). The political baton was thus passed back to Jack Straw who, on 14 April 1999, signed a second Authority to Proceed with Pinochet’s extradition. On 8 October, a London magistrate ruled that Pinochet could indeed be extradited to Spain and committed him on 34 charges of torture and one charge of conspiracy to commit torture. However, in a further twist, on 2 March 2000, following a medical


examination by four prominent UK doctors which concluded Pinochet was suffering from extensive brain damage that was affecting his memory, Straw declared that he was persuaded the General was unfit to stand trial and could return to Chile. Despite Pinochet’s release, his arrest brought Blair’s government some credit within the Labour Party caucus and public opinion more broadly.62 It also won praise from some academic commentators. Writing in 2001, Fred Halliday, for instance, described the affair as one of the two ‘clearest examples’ of Labour’s ‘ethical approach’ (the other was NATO’s intervention in Kosovo).63 On the other hand, Straw’s decision that Pinochet was unfit to stand trial came under fire. Although in July 2001 Chile’s Supreme Court also upheld a ruling that found Pinochet mentally unfit to stand trial, the accuracy of this diagnosis was called into serious doubt following what appeared to be a very coherent interview given by Pinochet to a Miami TV channel in November 2003. In early January 2005, Chile’s Supreme Court ruled that Pinochet was fit to stand trial on murder and kidnapping charges. More fundamentally however, the Pinochet case lent credence to the argument that, in Marc Weller’s words, ‘state immunity is not an absolute attribute of states, but an international constitutional privilege, bestowed by international law upon states to the extent necessary for the efficient and stable conduct of international relations’.64 The international constitution was further reinforced with the entering into force of the Rome Statute of the ICC. On 11 April 2002, ten states simultaneously ratified the Rome Statute. This brought the total number of State Parties to 66, surpassing the 60 State Parties necessary to cause the Statute to enter into force on 1 July 2002. The ICC complements the work of national courts to try individuals charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. It operates with a chamber of 18 judges including one from the UK, Justice Adrian Fulford. The UK was the forty second state to ratify the Statute on 4 October 2001 and Blair’s government was credited with playing a crucial role in establishing an ICC independent of the UN Security Council.65 The pivotal decision taken by Blair’s government was to join the so-called Like-Minded Group during the preparatory negotiations in early 1998. This Group, which eventually numbered 60 developed and developing states, pushed for an effective and independent court based around its four ‘cornerstone positions’. In supporting the idea of an Independent Prosecutor for the Court who would be able to initiate proceedings in addition to those triggered by State complaints or referred to the Court by the Security Council, Blair’s government broke the unanimity of the


Security Council’s Permanent-Five members. It also found itself arguing directly against Washington, which was the Court’s most vehement critic. Blair’s government justified its membership of the Like-Minded Group and an independent ICC on the grounds that the Court formed ‘a key part of the British Government’s ethical foreign policy’, it would ‘ensure that justice is done’, it would ‘act as a deterrent’ and it would ‘help bring about reconciliation’.66 The government’s decision to join the Like-Minded Group left it in the majority opinion on most of the other controversial issues about defining the crimes over which the Court would have jurisdiction. One issue that this did not resolve however was how to deal with India’s proposal to define the use of nuclear weapons as a war crime.67 This put the UK (and France) in a difficult position, at least until the issue was blurred to the satisfaction of all states in a diplomatic compromise. After much wrangling the compromise appeared as Article 8.2(b)(xx) of the Rome Statute. As part of the definition of war crimes, this Article forbids: Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute. While the first section of this sentence included nuclear weapons, since no international treaty banning nuclear weapons existed, the practical verdict on the legal status of their use was effectively dodged. The next major controversy revolved around the US government’s claim that its citizens serving in UN peacekeeping operations were vulnerable to what it called ‘politicised’ prosecutions by the Court. The US therefore threatened to veto the renewal of every UN peacekeeping operation until it achieved a blanket amnesty for its personnel. The US followed through on its threat by vetoing what should have been the routine extension of the UN mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) on 30 June 2002. Within two weeks, the Security Council passed resolution 1422 (12 July 2002). This stated that unless the Security Council agreed otherwise, the ICC could not bring any prosecutions against personnel from a Troop Contributing Country that was not a party to the Rome Statute for a period of 12 months starting from 1 July 2002. Having secured its objective, in the very next Security


Council resolution, 1423, the US consented to the extension of UNMIBH’s mandate until the end of the year. According to the Canadian government, the six State Parties to the ICC that voted for resolution 1422, including the UK, broke their obligations to uphold the integrity of the Rome Statute.68 Nearly a year later the issue remained unresolved and on 12 June 2003 the Security Council passed resolution 1487. This extended the immunity of UN peacekeeping personnel from states that had not ratified the Rome Statute for a further 12 months. Once again, the UK voted for the resolution. The vast majority of states that spoke at the Security Council debate argued that the extension was unnecessary and went against the spirit – and for some states – the letter of the Rome Statute. Specifically, these states argued that the resolution constituted a misapplication of Article 16 of the Statute by the Security Council; that the Council had not identified a threat to international peace and security as a basis for invoking Chapter VII and that earlier hypothetical fears about the operation of the ICC were no longer valid given that it had been up and running for 11 months and 18 judges had been appointed by the General Assembly.69 Although the UK’s position in this episode attracted considerable criticism, Blair’s government saw its actions as a perfect example of bridge-building between competing US and EU positions by adopting an imaginative interpretation of Article 16 and Chapter VII of the UN Charter. As Jason Ralph observed, while the UK associated itself with the EU stance and distanced itself from Washington’s position, it also rejected the idea that resolutions 1422 and 1487 were inconsistent with its obligations under the Rome Statute and welcomed the compromise that allowed the US to contribute to UN and other peace operations. In doing so, it emphasised that the compromise was an exceptional measure that was subject to the will of the Council and necessary to ensure US cooperation with the Court.70 Although the UK government’s position looked a lot like appeasement of unfounded US demands, its position was given a considerable boost when in the summer of 2004 the US dropped its demands for a further extension of the exemptions and did not seek to renew resolution 1487. Overall, it seems fair to conclude that faced with the prospect of US vetoes of a range of UN peace operations, the UK adopted a prudent course that allowed it to (temporarily) interpret its obligations under the Rome Statute in a rather imaginative manner while persuading the US that it was necessary to live with the ICC as a permanent fixture of the contemporary international legal order.


Environmental justice: reversing human-induced climate change? Speaking in September 2004, Blair identified climate change as ‘the world’s greatest environmental challenge’. Global warming, he argued, has become unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term I do not mean centuries ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own. And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence.71 Blair’s solution had three noteworthy characteristics: action on climate change had to be multilateral, it would not fit with electoral timetables and it lay in stimulating what he described as ‘a new and benign commercial force’. The last characteristic was crucial – and controversial – inasmuch as Blair noted that the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved without sacrificing economic growth and competitiveness. Reversing climate change was seen as necessary for both moral and prudential reasons. For Blair, its moral significance lay in the responsibility the advanced industrialised states had to the rest of the world. ‘It is the poorest countries in the world’, he stated, ‘that will suffer most from severe weather events … Yet it is they who have contributed least to the problem. That is why the world’s richest nations in the G8 have a responsibility to lead the way: for strong nations to better help the weak.’72 But Labour also saw environmental issues, including climate change, as directly related to more traditional security concerns, especially their potential to trigger migration and violent conflict in the developing world.73 Yet despite the apparent gravity of the situation, climate change rarely made the media headlines. One of the few occasions it did was in November 2000 when France’s Environment Minister, Dominique Voynet suggested that Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott’s ‘macho attitude’ had contributed to the collapse of the talks in The Hague. Her insult was in retaliation for Prescott’s earlier heated exit from the conference – he stopped to tell a crowd of journalists that he was ‘gutted’ and blamed the collapse of the negotiations on Voynet’s tiredness and her inability to follow the talks during the final night. More positively,


the collapse of The Hague negotiations encouraged the Swedish Presidency of the EU to adopt a new, and what proved to be more successful, approach.74 The major multilateral initiative on climate change was the Kyoto Protocol, which was envisaged as the first step to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in developed states. The UK signed the Protocol on 29 April 1998 and ratified it on 31 May 2002. The ratification required no new legislation but only for the Government to lay the Protocol before Parliament for 21 days. By 2001, the dominant view in UK politics was that climate change was a serious problem and that the Kyoto Protocol was a positive and realistic step forward.75 Indeed, by this stage the UK (along with Luxembourg and Germany) was one of the few OECD states actually reducing its emission of greenhouse gases.76 Not surprisingly, therefore, the ratification proved uncontroversial. Following the deposit of Russia’s instrument of ratification on 18 November 2004, the Protocol entered into force 90 days later, on 16 February 2005. The Protocol obliged its signatories to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 per cent by 2010. The UK was initially required to reduce its emissions to 92 per cent of their 1990 levels. However, under the EU ‘bubble’ – within which EU members devised their own targets – the UK was obliged to reduce emissions to 87.5 per cent of 1990 levels. The UK government acknowledged that these targets were much more limited than the 60 per cent reductions recommended by the 1990 International Panel on Climate Change, generally regarded as the most authoritative voice on this issue. Blair, for instance, noted ‘that the commitments reflected in the Kyoto protocol and current EU policy are insufficient’.77 Put another way, even if implemented, Kyoto would not have a major impact on global warming. A state failing to meet its Kyoto targets was to be banned from using market mechanisms and for every tonne of carbon by which it missed its target, 1.3 tonnes would be added to its next one (of course, the targets were not binding until the Protocol entered into force). The Protocol contained three mechanisms by which states could achieve their targets: 1. Avoiding carbon emissions by becoming more energy efficient and using renewable sources of energy. 2. Trading schemes whereby states failing to meet their targets could buy credits/permits from other states that had exceeded their targets. 3. By gaining emissions permits by helping developing states to reduce their emissions.


Strategies 2 and 3 were known as ‘flexible mechanisms’. In August 2001, after over three years of debates and consultations, the newly formed UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched the world’s first internal carbon trading scheme.78 In relation to wider foreign policy debates, the UK’s support for the Kyoto Protocol stood out as an area of substantive and unresolved disagreement with Washington. Characteristically, Blair’s government offered itself as a potential bridge-builder between competing US and EU positions. At the Kyoto conference in December 1997, for instance, the UK played a pivotal role in gaining EU acquiescence for US-led ideas on the key flexible mechanisms in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, notably emissions trading.79 Ultimately, however, the UK could not persuade Washington of the Protocol’s merits and the US refused to ratify the treaty. By late 2004, Blair’s government had reportedly resorted to a behind-the-scenes effort to persuade President Bush and Congress to sign up to a ‘Kyoto-lite’ agreement.80 This was overshadowed, however, by Blair’s admission that the UK would miss its selfimposed target of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2010.81 Between 1997 and 2003, Blair’s government had cut the overall emissions of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) to 13.4 per cent below 1990 levels compared to its target of 12.5 per cent. Carbon dioxide levels, however, had only been reduced by 5.6 per cent compared to the 20 per cent target.82 How are we to assess Labour’s record on climate change? Blair’s government did succeed in raising the profile of climate change issues, albeit from a very low baseline, through such initiatives as the Green Citizenship Challenge for UK TNCs abroad (1998) and the ‘climate levy’ (1999). Its record also compares favourably with the previous Conservative administration (although this made Labour’s environmental task easier by switching its support from coal to gas for reasons other than climate change) and most other OECD states. However, it was notable that Labour scored poorly when Friends of the Earth marked the manifestos of four UK political parties on the basis of 50 key environmental yardsticks covering ten policy areas. Out of a possible 50, Labour scored 23, the Conservatives 6.5, the Liberal Democrats 37.5 and the Green Party 42.83 Three other points are also important. First, Labour’s approach should be placed in the context of wider developments within EU policy. In particular, by the 1990s it was widely acknowledged that the UK’s participation in the EU and the concomitant Europeanisation of its policy structures had helped shift ‘the fundamental paradigms underpinning


British environmental policy’.84 Labour was thus swimming with the EU current on environmental issues. Second, Blair’s government placed a great deal of emphasis on flexibility mechanisms that effectively allow those who can pay for their environmental sins to get away with them.85 This stance, in turn, owed a great deal to over a decade of effective lobbying from organisations in the fossil fuels industry such as the Global Climate Coalition, a strong supporter of the Bush administration’s policy on climate change.86 This suggests that as in other sectors, such as arms exports, the way in which Blair’s government defined ‘the solutions’ to particular problems was heavily influenced by questions of political economy and the views of large firms with vested interests in that sector.87 Finally, and related to the second point, Blair’s favoured solutions remained embedded within a neoliberal framework which defined the way forward as generating ‘new and benign commercial forces’.88 In other words, technological innovation from within the business sector was seen as the main hope for a solution, while indicators of economic growth remained central for evaluating ‘success’. This downplayed the importance of changing the consumption rates and patterns of advanced industrialised societies and ignored the longerterm historical trends that suggest a sustainable solution to global warming requires the radical restructuring of industrial capitalist economies like the UK.89 Despite Clare Short’s success in raising the profile of international development issues, between 1997 and 2005, Labour could not escape several tensions within its approach. First, at least according to the UN Development Programme, life for many of the world’s poorest people was getting worse even after their governments had swallowed the neoliberal medicine prescribed by powerful states like the UK. Second, for a government claiming to be a champion of international development failing to reach the UN’s recommended target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNI on overseas aid was embarrassing to say the least. Moreover, Labour failed to resolve the issue of what sort of governments it was worth giving aid to and which should be bypassed in favour of NGOs. A third tension revolved around the government’s emphasis on building partnerships while ensuring that these worked on ‘our’ terms to promote ‘our’ values. In relation to issues of international justice, the record shows that in both debt relief and climate change Blair’s government remained closely wedded to neoliberal ideas of political economy. In both sectors, the results were far from spectacular (although the government often succeeded in engineering some very favourable but misleading newspaper


headlines, most notably in relation to debt relief). In the legal sphere, however, where questions of economic growth and competitiveness were less important, Blair’s government encouraged developments that made it harder for heads of state to expect immunity for crimes committed against their own citizens. It also played a significant part in helping to establish the ICC that may help deter as well as punish perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As with the Kyoto Protocol, the government’s support for the ICC put it on a collision course with Washington. In this sense, Labour’s moral commitments were at odds with its Atlanticism. Once again, however, the government’s preferred tactic was to try and build bridges between the US and European positions as it did in relation to emissions trading and ensuring (temporary) immunity from prosecution by the ICC for UN peacekeeping personnel. Attempts to bring Europe and America together were also evident in Labour’s approach to military intervention and the question of how best to engage with what Blair referred to as ‘other people’s conflicts’. This is the subject of Chapter 8.

8 Other People’s Wars

On 22 April 1999, Tony Blair suggested that ‘the most pressing foreign policy problem’ Britain faced was ‘to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people’s conflicts’.1 Although Blair did not specify what exactly he meant by ‘other people’s conflicts’ his speech was primarily concerned with other people’s wars. Using NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Kosovo as the springboard to define his position on military intervention more broadly, Blair warned his American audience that in an age of accelerating globalisation, noninterference and isolationism were no longer credible policy options. The ideal of non-intervention had served its purpose but now needed to ‘be qualified in important respects’ including when genocide and ethnic cleansing were taking place. For Blair five questions could help decide when military intervention was appropriate: ‘First, are we sure of our case? … Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? … Third, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake? … Fourth, are we prepared for the long term? … And finally, do we have national interests involved?’2 Interestingly, rather than answering the question of which wars to intervene in and which to ignore (as Blair seemed to imply), his questions assumed that choice had already been made and instead focused on deciding whether military force was the correct form of response.3 Between 1997 and 2005, Blair’s government was actively engaged in a variety of other people’s wars. Most notably, the UK sent its soldiers on enforcement operations to Iraq (1998–), East Timor (1999), Kosovo (1999), Sierra Leone (2000), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and the DRC (2003). The operations in East Timor, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and the DRC did not cause major problems within the UN Security 164

Other People’s Wars 165

Council. In contrast, the UK’s use of force in Kosovo and Iraq was much more controversial despite being justified, in part, with reference to earlier Security Council resolutions passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Much less was said about the other forms of UK engagement with the world’s war zones. This was at least partly because Blair’s Chicago speech did not dwell on the ways in which the UK could become ‘actively involved in other people’s conflicts’ without deploying its soldiers. In broader terms, Labour engaged in preventive measures such as democracy promotion and establishing the ICC; peacemaking and mediation initiatives including efforts to end the wars in Sudan and the DRC; peacekeeping deployments such as the UN’s missions in Cyprus and Kosovo, and NATO’s operations in the Balkans; sanctions including those imposed through the UN against Charles Taylor’s regime in Liberia and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and through the EU and Commonwealth against Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe and attempts to regulate ‘conflict trade’ goods such as diamonds in Sierra Leone and Angola, timber from Liberia and oil from Sudan. In addition, spurred on by Blair’s Chicago speech, Labour ministers entered the debate over how to conceptualise the relationship between sovereignty and human rights and proposed criteria to guide so-called humanitarian interventions in cases of ‘overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe’.4 For some, the government’s willingness to use force in support of human rights was a necessary part of being a ‘good international citizen’.5 Others, however, saw it as at best, a selective brand of humanitarianism, and at worst, the neo-imperial actions of an ‘outlaw state’.6 This chapter provides a critical analysis of the UK’s engagement with other people’s wars between 1997 and 2005. It does so by discussing two main questions: why did Blair’s government feel the need to engage with other people’s wars and what forms did its engagement take? The first section, therefore, explores the reasons behind Labour’s willingness to engage with other people’s wars. I suggest that at a structural level Blair’s government was ideologically predisposed to consider intervention in illiberal states that systematically abused their populations. Nevertheless, Labour’s crusading impulse owed a great deal to the political leadership exercised by the Prime Minister’s Office. In particular, Blair’s government articulated three powerful and interrelated sets of motives that justified engagement on the basis of concerns about security, political economy and humanitarianism. The rest of the chapter analyses the different forms that Labour’s engagement assumed, focusing particularly on its military and political dimensions.


Once again, Labour’s four underlying foreign policy commitments shaped the way it approached these issues. In a fundamental sense, Atlanticism was central to Labour’s engagement with other people’s wars in that its initiatives were designed to ensure the smooth running of the current world order. It was also clear in the way that in the Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan operations, the UK played a subordinate role to the US. Indeed, the UK also played subordinate roles in the Australianled INTERFET force in East Timor in 1999 and in the French-led mission to the DRC in 2003. Only in Sierra Leone and in the initial phase of establishing the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul did Blair’s government take the military lead. Multilateralism was also central to these issues. Once again, Blair’s government emphasised effective forms of cooperation rather than the need to work through permanent organisations. Although NATO was the vehicle for intervention in Kosovo, this proved the exception rather than the rule with Labour participating in coalitions of the willing in the operations in Iraq, East Timor, Afghanistan and the DRC. In Sierra Leone, the UK engaged unilaterally, although even Operation Palliser worked alongside an embattled UN peace operation. Neoliberalism was not immediately obvious in the UK’s engagement with other people’s wars but it provided the ideological basis for the government’s approach to peacebuilding and its belief that spreading liberal market democracy offered a long-term solution to both intra-state and inter-state war. Finally, moralism was vital to the entire enterprise. As discussed in Chapter 1, at times this took the form of a crusading mentality. Indeed, arguably since Operation Desert Fox in Iraq in 1998, Blair’s government – and Blair in particular – began to challenge nothing less than the ethical basis of the Westphalian understanding of international society and the norm of non-intervention.

Why engage in other people’s wars? Viewed in a structural light, and recalling Colin Hay’s notion of ‘strategically reflexive contexts’ discussed in the Introduction, there were two main explanations for why Blair’s government was likely to engage in other people’s wars. First, despite only losing the last major piece of its empire, Hong Kong, in 1997, Blair’s government retained what Hedley Bull called ‘a supreme interest’ in sustaining the current international order that provided Britain with considerable benefits, not least a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.7 Moreover, through the UK’s historic role in erecting colonial borders, constructing local economies,


‘quasi states’ and even entire regions according to its imperial interests, and its management of the process of decolonisation, Britain’s imperial legacy helped shape the context in which a variety of other people’s wars developed, most notably perhaps in Israel–Palestine and the wider Middle East region, South Asia, Sierra Leone and Sudan.8 Consequently, not only did Blair’s government retain an enduring interest in preserving the smooth running of the contemporary world order, but also its imperial past meant that it could be called upon to help resolve conflicts in its former colonies as happened in Sierra Leone and Sudan. Second, Labour’s commitment to liberal internationalism placed it in a position familiar to other powerful liberal democracies, namely, the need to argue that sovereignty and the norm of non-intervention should be conditional upon sovereigns fulfilling certain basic obligations to their populations. Traditionally, as Michael Doyle suggested, this left liberal states appearing congenitally confused in analyzing and in prescribing for situations of intervention. … Respecting a nonliberal state’s state rights to noninterference requires ignoring violations of rights they inflict on their own populations. Addressing the rights of individuals in the Third World requires ignoring the rights of states to be free from foreign intervention.9 Consequently, while liberal states tended not to make war against other states they recognised as being liberal, they were actually more likely to confront non-liberal states, sometimes violently.10 Given that the previous Conservative governments subscribed to broadly similar liberal values, Labour’s relatively frequent use of the military instrument abroad suggested that human actors and not just structures were crucial to understanding UK foreign policy. Arguably, the most popular explanation was Blair’s ostensibly ‘presidential’ style of making foreign policy and his personal penchant for so-called humanitarian interventions. As The Economist quipped, Britain may have lost its empire but it had ‘at last found Tony Blair’.11 The gist of the argument was that ministers, civil servants and the Labour party at large either followed the diktats issued by Blair and his personal advisers, or were powerless to stop the Prime Minister following his chosen policies. John Kampfner, for instance, argued that Blair ‘acquired a passion for military intervention without precedent in modern British political history and without parallel internationally’. For Kampfner, Britain’s military operations since 1997 were ‘Blair’s wars’, not those of his


government or his party – the result of Blair’s dangerous personal mix of ‘naivety and hubris’, ‘self-confidence and fear, of Atlanticism, evangelism, Gladstonian idealism, pursued when necessary through murky means’.12 It is not necessary to agree with Kampfner’s verdict on Blair’s political make-up to accept the Prime Minister’s importance in deciding when to send Britain’s armed forces into action abroad. There were two reasons for this, one institutional, the other more personal. In personal terms, Blair was an unusual Prime Minister inasmuch as he entered office with little interest in or knowledge of foreign affairs. And yet, as discussed in Chapters 2, 3 and 9, Blair’s personal diplomacy played a crucial role in justifying the military operations in Iraq (1998– and 2003), Kosovo (1999) and Afghanistan (2001). Indeed, at its height, NATO’s campaign in Kosovo/Serbia was said to have occupied about 90 per cent of Blair’s time.13 Why Blair became so personally exercised by questions of intervention was the subject of much speculation and analysis. Blair’s political biographers consistently pointed to several factors: (1) the impact that Saddam Hussein’s regime and a visit to a Kosovan refugee camp had upon his thinking; (2) the ways in which he believed international affairs offered a relatively blank canvass on which to sketch his ideas about international ethics; (3) Blair’s preference for face-to-face diplomacy and his faith in his ability to persuade others of his convictions and (4) perhaps strangely, his belief that questions of intervention provided an opportunity to ‘deliver’ real changes that eluded him on some domestic issues.14 In institutional terms, Blair’s government instigated a series of reforms that gave the executive centre greater powers to direct and coordinate the strategic dimensions of UK foreign policy-making.15 These changes made it easier for Blair’s personal decisions to filter successfully through the foreign policy-making process. Although the reforms had their positive aspects, a central danger lay in the fact that when decisions were taken by a small coterie of like-minded advisers outside the formal constitutional channels (although admittedly these were often unclear and disputed), groupthink was likely to replace more dispassionate appraisal of the available options. Arguably, such groupthink was evident in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.16 For both these personal and institutional reasons, during Blair’s premiership No. 10 Downing Street became more willing than previous administrations to consider using military force abroad. But what arguments did Blair’s Office make to justify its engagement in other people’s wars? I submit that three clusters of motives drove Labour’s agenda on these issues, namely, concerns about security, political economy and human rights.


First, Blair’s government appears to have been motivated to engage in other people’s wars by a mixture of three different logics of security: Hobbesian, Grotian and Kantian.17 Despite Labour’s stated rejection of crude realpolitik, the Hobbesian or power-oriented logic of security involved using military force to defeat certain threatening actors and to defend the UK’s geopolitical interests. UK support for NATO’s intervention in Kosovo contained important elements of this type of security thinking. Alongside humanitarian justifications (see following paragraphs), UK officials also stressed more traditional, geopolitical considerations including concerns over the potential for regional instability and the long-term damage that could be done to the Euro-Atlantic community if NATO’s credibility was jeopardised by its failure to shape Milosevic’s behaviour (see Chapter 3). Whether the unresolved status of post-intervention Kosovo made the region more or less stable remained the subject of considerable debate. This Hobbesian logic assumed a higher priority within Blair’s government after 9/11. So much so that Lawrence Freedman suggested that the main issue for UK foreign and security policy post-9/11 was to decide when to engage with those parts of the world where people were getting ‘viciously angry with each other but also provide havens and inspiration for those who are angry with us’.18 This rationale was evident in Britain’s participation in Operation Enduring Freedom (see Chapter 2) and in Blair’s support for a second American-led war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq (see Chapter 9). The Grotian logic saw the UK’s security as intimately connected to the preservation of international order or what the UN Charter refers to as international peace and security. This logic called for engagement in other people’s wars beyond Britain’s main areas of geopolitical interest on the basis of enlightened self-interest, preserving the framework of a liberal international society and guarding against war’s spillover effects. This type of thinking was closely related to the way in which Labour elites understood globalisation and interdependence, and was evident in the justifications used to send British troops to Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone and the DRC. The third Kantian logic of security was apparent in the way in which Blair’s government emphasised the importance of democracy promotion and regime change in certain ‘rogue’ or ‘failed’ states. Here, Blair’s administration bought into the idea that expanding the zone of liberal democratic peace was a crucial part of ensuring the UK’s long-term security. This strand of thinking was evident in the British operations in Sierra Leone in support of the ousted President Ahmed Kabbah and in the intervention to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It was also


manifest in Blair’s retrospective attempts to justify the invasion of Iraq on the basis that it had removed a tyrant and replaced him (Saddam Hussein) with an elected government.19 As discussed in Chapter 6, these different philosophies of security all called for British armed forces that could, in George Robertson’s words, ‘go to the crisis rather than have the crisis come to us’. It also justified the waging of small wars not in the face of imminent threats to the survival of the British state but to the far more nebulous concept of threats to international peace and security. The difficulty was that such threats did not always assume military forms. As the report of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel suggested, it was necessary to think of at least six clusters of threats: economic and social threats including poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation; inter-state conflict; internal conflict; nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons; terrorism and transnational organised crime.20 Blair’s government had recognised the seriousness of the first category of threats well before the High Level Panel’s report. Consequently, a second cluster of motives for engaging with other people’s wars was to limit their economic costs.21 The costs of other people’s wars were apparent in several ways. First, the impact upon the local population was usually enormous in terms of the negative effects upon inter alia livelihoods, production, infrastructure, services and debt burdens. In short, Blair’s government recognised war was one of the main causes of economic underdevelopment. Second, in an interdependent world, economic affects quickly spilled across political borders with adverse effects on the wider region and beyond. Such spillover effects included diverting resources to assist refugees and scaring potential investors away from the region. Third, war also generated the incentive and the cover for illicit trades in a variety of goods such as drugs (Afghanistan, Colombia), conflict diamonds (Sierra Leone, Angola), people (Sudan, northern Uganda, Chechnya, Colombia) and scarce natural resources including the poaching of rare species of birds and animals (central and southern Africa). Interdependence and globalisation were thus part of the reason why Blair’s government became so engaged in other people’s wars. But globalisation was also said to offer a potential solution. Since Blair’s government thought war was most likely to occur where poverty, inequality and failed systems of governance existed side-by-side and where supplies of cheap weapons were readily available, and because Labour saw further neoliberal globalisation as the best way to promote development, stimulate economic growth, alleviate poverty and spread


the values of liberal democracy (see Chapters 5 and 7), it stood to reason that globalisation represented a powerful antidote to the causes of war. Consequently, promoting liberal globalisation, so the argument went, would lower the incidence of both intra-state and inter-state war because liberal democracies were not only accomplished at resolving internal conflicts peacefully, they were also the type of state least likely to fight wars against other states they recognised as democracies. Labour’s understanding of globalisation thus provided both a rationale for Britain’s engagement in other people’s wars and a potential, albeit long-term solution to the problem. The final cluster of reasons for engagement was humanitarian. During Labour’s period in office it became increasingly difficult – though definitely not impossible (see Chapter 7) – for liberal democracies to ignore what Cook called ‘overwhelming humanitarian catastrophes’. It was particularly difficult for a government that presented itself as being a ‘force for good’ in the world. In this sense I do not agree with Mark Curtis’ conclusion that the idea that Blair’s government was ‘motivated by concerns to promote human rights, democracy and other virtues is simply nonsense and an act of faith, or self-delusion’.22 I agree with Curtis that these were not always the primary motives behind specific UK foreign policies or Labour’s foreign policy in general. Indeed, when Blair’s government used the language of human rights to justify engaging in other people’s wars it was rather vague, selective and used in conjunction with other less altruistic sentiments. In other words, humanitarian arguments were always entangled with reasons of political expediency rather than applied according to strict moral principle.23 Consequently, while the human wrongs suffered by Kosovans, Sierra Leoneans and East Timorese eventually attracted significant UK engagement, those suffered by greater numbers of Burundians, Chechens and DR Congolese did not. Throughout this book I have been at pains to stress that the four underlying commitments of Labour’s foreign policy were Atlanticism, multilateralism, neoliberalism and moralism. In certain cases, however, including Labour’s engagement with other people’s wars, humanitarian concerns did play a role. Having explored the reasons driving Labour’s engagement with other people’s wars, what forms did that engagement take? Broadly speaking, it assumed three forms: military, political and symbolic. To take the last category first, symbolic engagement, in contrast to complete indifference, involves adopting token gestures that attempt to create the impression of serious engagement without a major commitment of (human or financial) resources. Examples of symbolic engagement during Labour’s first


two terms include its responses to conflicts in Algeria, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, the DRC (especially before 2001), Indonesia (Aceh and Molucche-Sulawesi), Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire and attacks on Kurds in Turkey. Symbolic engagement usually results from a particular part of the world/war zone not being considered a priority. In Africa, for instance, this was at least partly because the legacy of imperial spheres of influence remained evident, notably in the international responses to wars in the continent’s western and central regions. When other people’s wars did attract significant British attention, engagement took both military and political forms.

Military engagement Labour’s military engagement with other people’s wars took three main forms: ●

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Acts of collective self-defence as in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Interventions and peace enforcement operations justified with reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter such as those in Iraq, Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone and the DRC. Peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations such as the UN missions in Cyprus and Kosovo, the ISAF in Afghanistan and NATO’s operations in Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom was discussed in Chapter 2, this section focuses upon Labour’s approach to the last two of these issues. In the contemporary international legal order, the question of whether a right of unilateral humanitarian intervention (i.e. without UN Security Council authorisation) exists is extremely controversial. Blair’s government was one of only two NATO governments that claimed such a right existed as part of its justification for Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999.24 As discussed in Chapter 3, however, this put the UK in a small minority of international legal opinion. John Major’s government had made similar appeals when setting up the ‘safe havens’ and no fly zones in northern and southern Iraq in 1991 in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. As a result, appeals to a right of humanitarian intervention also formed part of the justification for Labour’s use of military force to police and protect the no fly zones including during Operation Desert Fox. Once again, most international lawyers found the government’s reasoning unpersuasive (see Chapter 9).


In the other cases where British troops participated in enforcement operations – as in East Timor, Sierra Leone and the DRC – they did so with the consent of the host government, although without the consent of some other belligerents. The exception was Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, which was justified on the basis of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter (see Chapter 2). Building on the five questions posed in Blair’s Chicago speech, in July 2000 Robin Cook set out six principles to help decide when the ‘international community’ – a phrase he did not define – should act in response to ‘massive violations of humanitarian law or crimes against humanity’.25 ●

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First, since intervention was, ‘by definition, … an admission of failure of prevention’ it was necessary to develop a ‘culture of conflict prevention’. Second, although intervention could take more forms than ‘armed force’, the latter ‘should only be used as a last resort’. ‘Third, the immediate responsibility for halting violence rests with the state in which it occurs.’ ‘Fourth, when faced with an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, which a government has shown it is unwilling or unable to prevent or is actively promoting, the international community should intervene.’ ‘Fifth, any use of force should be proportionate to achieving the humanitarian purpose and carried out in accordance with international law.’ ‘Sixth, any use of force should be collective.’

Just over one-year later, Cook’s points were reiterated and developed by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty’s (ICISS) report, The Responsibility to Protect.26 This concluded that the relationship between sovereignty and human rights should not be thought of in mutually exclusive terms since the right of sovereigns to non-interference in their internal affairs was conditional upon them not systematically abusing their citizens. In short, a state’s sovereignty involved a responsibility to protect its own citizens. Blair’s government subsequently endorsed the ICISS conclusions. More recently still, during the tenth anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the UK also endorsed Kofi Annan’s five-point plan for preventing genocide.27 In this context, it was noticeable that since late 2003, Blair’s government suggested humanitarian intervention was not required in Darfur, Sudan


(see also Chapter 4). This was in spite of the fact that the Sudanese government were responsible for many of the massacres, the US government described the situation as genocide, and Hilary Benn suggested Darfur’s crisis constituted ‘the most serious humanitarian emergency in the world today’.28 One difficulty for Blair’s government was that despite its appeals to the contrary, there was virtually no opinio juris that suggested a right of unilateral humanitarian intervention existed either within the UN Charter or customary international law.29 Yet as Adam Roberts has argued, it was not correct to assume that international law ‘absolutely excluded’ such a right. Given the complex relationships between law, politics and ethics regarding humanitarian intervention it is worth quoting Roberts’ incisive conclusions at some length: There is a case for reaffirming strongly the principle of nonintervention, and recognizing that any forceful intervention on humanitarian grounds is a very occasional exception to that still valid principle. Indeed, an occasional and tolerated practice of humanitarian intervention may help to rescue the principle of nonintervention from its obvious weakness: if the principle is viewed as inviolable in absolutely every circumstance, irrespective of all evidence of human misery, it risks being discredited. … It may be more useful to think of humanitarian intervention, not as a general right or duty, but as an occasional and exceptional necessity which is the outcome of a situation in which legal requirements clash. One could sum up a complex situation in international law by saying that humanitarian intervention is not absolutely excluded. In principle, it is wrong to expect international law to provide anything even approaching generic approval in advance to a type of action resulting from situations each of which is unique, and in which powerful legal and moral considerations have to be balanced against each other. … While there is no chance of a so-called right of humanitarian intervention actually being agreed by a significant number of states, it is also likely that a diplomatic attempt to secure an explicit and absolute rejection of humanitarian intervention in all circumstances would fail to gain sufficient support to be accepted as a norm of international law. States engaging in interventions on humanitarian grounds, especially in the absence of Security Council authorization, act in a situation of legal and political precariousness, and it may be right that they should have that burden on their shoulders.30


Labour’s approach – and international society’s responses to it – seemed to confirm at least two aspects of Roberts’ conclusions. First, and most fundamentally perhaps, by emphasising the unique and exceptional nature of events in Kosovo, Blair’s government stopped short of suggesting that Operation Allied Force set a general precedent for a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention. In this sense, recognising that its legal justification was unlikely to be accepted by the weight of international legal opinion, Blair’s government offered a plea in mitigation that in this exceptional case international society should tolerate NATO’s actions.31 The IICK’s verdict that NATO’s intervention was ‘illegal but legitimate’ seemed to accept this particular mitigation plea.32 This approach was also evident in Blair’s March 2004 speech about global terrorism. Here, Blair implicitly recognised that a right to humanitarian intervention was at best controversial in international law and appealed for the law to be changed in order to make it harder for tyrants to systematically abuse their populations. ‘It may well be’, Blair stated, that under international law as presently constituted, a regime can systematically brutalise and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do, when dialogue, diplomacy and even sanctions fail, unless it comes within the definition of a humanitarian catastrophe (though the 300,000 remains in mass graves already found in Iraq might be thought by some to be something of a catastrophe). This may be the law, but should it be?33 This speech attracted some stinging criticism. Michael Byers, for instance, argued that it ‘provided the most worrying example of the potential for politically motivated abuse of a right to unilateral humanitarian intervention’. ‘The prime minister’, Byers continued, ‘was in fact relying on the international law of the crusaders and conquistadors – which, in essence, was no law at all. Were Blair truly concerned about the plight of the world’s oppressed, he would have done better to focus on the other, non-military aspects of the responsibility to protect.’34 Another problem with Blair’s line of reasoning was his implication that it was the international legal order that was responsible for preventing humanitarian interventions. As Simon Chesterman has noted, however, ‘This is simply not true. Interventions do not take place because states choose not to undertake them.’35 This was certainly the case in Rwanda in 1994 where political calculations not legal obligations prevented international intervention to halt the genocide. Similarly,


regarding the 2003 Iraq war, the fact that most international legal experts regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal had not stopped the Prime Minister from overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime, although it did raise the political costs of the invasion (see Chapter 9). The second form of Britain’s military engagement in other people’s wars was through peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations involving a mixture of Chapter VI and VII activities. Blair’s government considered such activities ‘essential to sustain international peace and security’.36 In financial terms, the UK’s mandatory contribution to the UN’s peacekeeping budget was set as the fourth largest after the US, Japan and Germany. Since 2000, however, and following US-led pressure to change the way peacekeeping was funded, a series of reforms were phased in over time that altered the distribution of payments. The main beneficiaries of these reforms were the Permanent Five members of the Security Council who would be relieved of about 2 per cent of UN peacekeeping costs under the new arrangements.37 That said, the UK also contributed extra funds voluntarily. For example, during 2002–03 the UK contributed £386 million to UN peacekeeping, of which £113 million was in mandatory contributions and £273 million voluntary.38 In terms of the number of troops committed to peacekeeping, Blair’s government often worked outside UN command and control structures, with over 10,000 British troops deployed in NATO’s missions in the Balkans and the ISAF in Afghanistan. In comparison, the UK committed relatively few soldiers to UN peace operations. When Labour arrived in office in May 1997, the UK contributed approximately 430 personnel to UN peace operations, placing it about twenty fourth in the list of most generous troop contributing states. During Labour’s first term its level of troop contributions remained fairly constant reaching a high of 793 in June 2000 and dropping to a low of 383 troops in June 1998.39 Between May 2001 and December 2004, the UK was consistently ranked between the sixteenth and twenty fifth most generous troop contributing state. During this period, Britain provided between 535 and 718 personnel (the combined total of military observers, civilian police and troops).40 Until mid-2002 when the US vetoed the extension of UNMIBH’s mandate because of its concerns about the ICC (see Chapter 7) the vast majority of UK personnel participated in three of the least dangerous UN peacekeeping operations – UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) (which the UK had been involved with from the start in 1964), UNMIBH in Bosnia and the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Following the US veto, from late 2002, most British personnel were deployed to just two missions, UNFICYP and UNMIK.


Blair’s government justified its relatively small military contribution to UN peace operations partly on the grounds that because it was one of the few states that could provide troops capable of conducting robust, ‘first-in’ expeditionary missions in ‘challenging circumstances’, it ‘would expect to play a lesser part in enduring operations where many other countries can contribute.’41 While this description of the UK’s military capabilities was accurate it did not sit comfortably with the fact that the majority of British soldiers deployed in UN missions were in UNFICYP, one of the most ‘enduring’ and least militarily demanding of all the UN’s peacekeeping operations. Ministers were also prone to exaggerate Britain’s contribution to UN peacekeeping. For instance, in June 2004, Bill Rammell incorrectly claimed that the UK contributed more troops to UN peacekeeping than any other permanent member of the Security Council.42 In fact, at the end of May 2004, China held that honour, contributing 390 more troops than the UK. Indeed, at that time, the UK was ranked the twenty third most generous troop contributing country, supplying 119 fewer troops to UN peacekeeping operations than Guinea-Bissau. Nevertheless, Blair’s government was a vocal supporter of the so-called Brahimi Report on UN peace operations released in August 2000.43 In particular, UK ministers emphasised their support for the idea that the UN’s ‘blue helmets’ should no longer ‘stand aside while serious crimes against humanity are committed’.44 This was not particularly surprising given the way in which Britain’s post-Cold War peacekeeping doctrine had consistently emphasised the need for ‘robust’ peacekeeping forces able to defend both themselves and threatened civilians in war-zones.45 In practical terms, the UK supported the implementation of Brahimi’s recommendations primarily by helping to train, equip and finance various regional organisations and UN personnel to keep – and sometimes enforce – the peace more effectively (see also Chapter 4). Labour also continued the UK’s record of developing the doctrine underpinning peace operations via the MOD’s Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre, established as a result of the SDR.46

Political engagement Although Blair’s government wielded the military instrument relatively frequently compared to its predecessors, diplomacy remained the usual method of engaging with other people’s wars. This was conducted in both bilateral and multilateral forums and encompassed a wide range of issues from conflict prevention and peacemaking initiatives to


‘constructive engagement’ and the imposition of sanctions. With regard to sanctions, for instance, Labour participated in a variety of multilateral regimes. These included UN sanctions authorised under Chapter VII against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA movement in Angola and Charles Taylor’s government in Liberia and EU, Commonwealth and bilateral sanctions against Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe. With the exception of Iraq, all these sanctions regimes were ‘targeted’ or so-called smart sanctions that fell short of imposing comprehensive trade bans upon entire states. Instead, they targeted specific regimes and/or elite groups or particular products and commodities. It was also noticeable that Labour’s diplomacy tended to engage with elites in the hope of achieving ‘top–down’ solutions to violent conflicts. One of the limitations with such approaches, as Mary Kaldor has argued, is that in the context of what she called ‘new wars,’ lasting solutions would probably require engaging with the voices from below and supporting groups within civil society committed to cosmopolitan values, participatory democracy and the rule of law.47 It would be impossible to cover the entire gambit of the UK’s political engagement with other people’s wars in one volume let alone one chapter.48 This section therefore analyses two cases that illuminate some of the limitations and dilemmas involved in the UK’s political engagement with other people’s wars, namely those in the DRC and Chechnya. It then examines Labour’s attempts to alter the international environment in which contemporary wars were played out by regulating so-called conflict trade and the activities of private security companies (PSCs). Although the DRC was not an area of historic British interest, between June and September 2003, Blair’s government contributed approximately 100 soldiers to the 1500 strong French-led Operation Artemis. With UN Security Council authorisation, a Chapter VII mandate and with the host government’s consent, this operation deployed to help the UN operation, MONUC, protect the residents of Bunia, a town in eastern DRC, after the withdrawal of Ugandan forces that had been based there. According to Médecins Sans Frontières, although the operation did stabilise the situation in Bunia, it did little to ease the plight of suffering civilians beyond the town’s limits.49 The operation was best understood in light of Franco-British cooperation about how the ESDP should develop and the need to support the desperately under-resourced UN peace operation.50 Before Operation Artemis, the UK had considered military engagement in the DRC imprudent. Yet, with an estimated 3.5 million war-related


deaths since 1998, it was by far the world’s most destructive recent conflict. For five years, Blair’s government provided little material assistance and was content to let South Africa and several other African states take the lead in external mediation.51 The exception was in late 2001 when the UK played an important mediation role to stop the fighting between Ugandan and Rwandan troops deployed within the DRC.52 On the other hand, Blair’s government continued to support both Rwanda and Uganda politically and financially while they occupied large parts of the DRC and was reluctant to publicly criticise either government for human rights abuses committed in those areas.53 Consequently, before Artemis and with the Rwanda–Uganda exception, arguably the UK’s main impacts on the war came from the sale of Hawk jet parts and other military equipment used by the considerable Zimbabwean contingent in the DRC.54 According to a group of British MPs, Blair’s government also failed to seriously address the impact that resource exploitation (including that supported by 11 UK firms) had on the course of the war and attempts to resolve it.55 In Labour’s defence, given the abuses committed by all the warring parties, the kleptocratic logic fuelling the war, and the way in which Joseph Kabila simply inherited the presidency following his father’s assassination in early 2001, it was hardly clear who exactly the UK government should have thrown its political backing behind. A rather different set of issues and dilemmas were involved in the UK’s response to the second Russian–Chechen war. On 7 August 1999, approximately 2000 Chechen soldiers led by Shamil Basayev and Emir al Khattab invaded areas of Dagestan with the stated aim of creating an Islamic republic. The Russian authorities responded and by September the second Russia–Chechen war was underway. By mid-December, approximately 100,000 Russian soldiers had encircled Chechnya’s capital, Grozny and proceeded to lay waste to the city, initially through aerial and artillery bombardment but later at closer quarters. The destruction subsequently engulfed most of Chechnya. Conditions during the war rendered the collection of reliable statistics about the total number of casualties (on both sides) impossible. All that could be said with any certainty was that the casualties were in the tens of thousands.56 Despite Russia’s claims that the war was a domestic matter, it was clearly an issue of international concern. As Neil MacFarlane noted, in legal terms, the war violated the 1977 Protocol II of the Geneva Convention relating to Non-international Armed Conflicts, the 1984 Convention against Torture, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Russia’s obligations under the 1990


Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. It also contradicted Russia’s political commitments made in the CSCE/OSCE context, including the Paris Charter.57 The war also physically spilled across Chechnya’s borders into Dagestan and Ingushetia, generated over 200,000 refugees most of whom fled into Georgia and Ingushetia and attracted a variety of foreign mujahideen warriors. The UK’s response to the war provided an important illustration of the dilemmas involved in engaging politically in other people’s conflicts. Blair’s government quickly ruled out military intervention on the grounds that it was ‘neither feasible nor desirable’.58 Even the government’s critics acknowledged that this was reasonable on prudential grounds, although they claimed it smacked of double standards because as Mark Curtis put it, ‘Russian crimes in Chechnya are worse than Yugoslav crimes in Kosovo.’59 Their disagreement with Blair’s government was over the form of political engagement most likely to achieve the UK’s stated goals with regard to both the war in Chechnya and broader UK–Russia relations. In relation to the war, the UK’s short-term objective was to secure compliance with fundamental human rights norms and hence pave the way for a political settlement in Chechnya that would prevent the conflict spilling over into the broader Caucasus region.60 With regard to wider UK–Russia relations, since the end of the Cold War successive UK governments had declared their intention to support Russia’s transition to a market democracy and to secure its cooperation in the UN Security Council, especially on questions of non-proliferation and NATO enlargement, and in the fight against terrorism and transnational crime. Critics of Blair’s government made two main charges.61 First, by failing to publicly criticise Russia’s Chechen policies with sufficient seriousness and, especially after 9/11 and later the Beslen school atrocity, suggesting that Putin’s approach was a necessary response to acts of Chechen terrorism, Blair and his ministers had sent political signals incompatible with their claims that they would place concerns for human rights at the heart of their diplomacy. This was put down to the fact that especially after 9/11, Putin’s Russia, unlike Milosevic’s Serbia, was an important supporter of the US-led ‘war on terrorism’. The second charge was that Blair’s government failed to use any of the levers at its disposal to exert material as well as (weak) rhetorical pressure on Russia. As outlined by the FCO in 2000, the UK’s potential bilateral levers included £30 million annual aid from the Know How Fund; military training and assistance under the ‘Outreach’ programme; exports to Russia of £296 million in 1999 and imports of £763 million and a line of


£500 million in export credit guarantees available to exporters to Russia. In addition, the UK was the fifth largest foreign investor in Russia and in 1997 had signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement on trade and investment.62 What was required from the UK, according to Curtis, was ‘simply to turn off the tap of support, be it on arms, trade, investment or diplomacy’.63 Blair’s government defended its stance by reiterating that it had voiced its concerns to Russian officials about the unlawful, incoherent and counter-productive nature of Moscow’s policies towards Chechnya, and that it had supported statements critical of Russia’s policies in a variety of multilateral forums including the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the UNCHR.64 The problem was that these actions resulted in virtually no perceptible change in Russian policies. At times, they looked positively sycophantic, especially Blair’s enthusiastic support for Chechnya’s new constitutional order (imposed under martial law by Moscow in March 2003) and the subsequent presidential elections (October 2003) that ‘independent observers unanimously believed … were rigged.’65 Although in mid-2001 Russia permitted an OSCE Assistance Group to monitor human rights in Chechnya, the dangerous situation on the ground quickly forced it to retire back to Moscow. Even so, in December 2002 Russia refused to renew its mandate. Russia also refused humanitarian NGOs access to Chechnya. Human Rights Watch, for instance, applied and was turned down ten times.66 Similarly, although the UNCHR adopted statements condemning Russian policies in its 2000 and 2001 reports, similar statements failed to pass in 2002 and 2003. The resulting lack of information and public awareness made it even harder to mobilise ‘the politics of shame’ against the Russian government. In addition, the UK chose not to pursue the more stringent options of reducing aid programmes or investment, or pushing for Russia’s exclusion from the Council of Europe or G-8 meetings. This stance was supported by the FAC which in 2000, called for ‘greater rather than lesser western engagement with Russia’.67 The nub of the issue, as Neil MacFarlane observed, was that given the crucial importance of ‘the Chechen problem’ in Putin’s rise to, and consolidation of power, the West – Blair’s Britain included – simply lacked the stomach to apply the levels of coercion sufficient to alter Russian policies. Consequently, the UK’s engagement with the Russian–Chechen war revolved around finding ways to ‘underline the seriousness with which Western states take Russian alleged transgressions of the Federation’s international commitments without jeopardizing the overall relationship’.68 Critics of Blair’s government argued that it had sent


the clear signal that it was not particularly serious about Russia’s ‘transgressions’ in Chechnya. On balance, given Labour’s statements about the importance of human rights and the need for states to respect international law, it seems reasonable to conclude that Blair’s government could – and should – have sent some material signals of its concern about Russian policies in Chechnya. Although such actions as reducing the UK’s small aid programmes or military training and assistance packages would have been unlikely to alter Putin’s Chechen policies, by the same token, they would have been unlikely to cause Russia to change its stance on NATO enlargement, non-proliferation or within the UN Security Council. Such actions would have constituted material evidence that the UK took human wrongs seriously. In the long-term at least, one potential way around such dilemmas was to construct an international environment that discouraged rather than fuelled war. Consequently, as well as engaging directly with the belligerents in specific wars, Blair’s government also pursued what Arnold Wolfers called ‘milieu goals’ by engaging in activities intended to shape the international environment in ways that would help prevent wars erupting and quickly stifle those that did.69 Such initiatives contributed to the UK’s wider goal of ensuring the smooth running of a liberal world order. Alongside its efforts to prevent violent conflicts (see Chapter 4), its support for establishing the ICC and approving debt relief for HIPCs (discussed in Chapter 7), Blair’s government engaged in important initiatives to regulate so-called conflict trade goods and PSCs. According to Neil Cooper, ‘conflict trade’ refers to the trade in nonmilitary goods such as diamonds and precious minerals, timber, oil and drugs that finances war.70 Trade in such items was an important factor fuelling wars in inter alia Colombia, Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Sudan and the DRC. While conflict trade often fuelled wars, it also meant that belligerent groups engaged in it were vulnerable to effective sanctions regimes imposed upon the goods in question. This provided international society with an option short of military intervention to help end wars. Arguably, Labour’s most prominent conflict trade initiative was the leading role it played in the so-called Kimberley Process. This began in May 2000 in South Africa with the aim of regulating the trade in conflict diamonds. The subsequent agreement on a Certification Scheme between 42 diamond producing governments plus the member states of the EU entered into force on 1 January 2003. The previous year, the FCO had established the Government Diamond Office to ensure all diamond imports and exports were ‘conflict free’. It should, however, be noted


that it was the NGO Global Witness that played the catalytic role in putting these issues on the government’s (and a wider international) agenda.71 With limited resources Global Witness, under its Director Charmian Gooch, assembled important evidence to help stop illegal logging in Cambodia and regulate the international flow of conflict diamonds emanating from Angola and Sierra Leone. It then successfully lobbied Blair’s government to take these issues seriously and later received support and some finance from the UK government. The Labour government’s first major statement with regard to the regulation of UK PSCs was a Green Paper published in February 2002.72 Despite being initiated largely because of the ‘Arms-to-Africa’ affair, Downing Street reportedly delayed its publication before the 2001 general election ‘for fear it would dredge up unwelcome memories’ of that particular episode.73 When it was released, the paper set out six options for regulation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

ban private military activity abroad; ban recruitment for military activity abroad; a licensing regime for military services; registration and notification; a General Licence for PSCs; self-regulation: a voluntary code of conduct.

There followed a six-month consultation process involving activists, academics, PSCs and several other government departments. By the end of Labour’s second term, however, no White Paper had been produced. Nevertheless, it was clear that the official debate on the issue had quickly gravitated towards rejecting Option 1 to focus on what sort of regulation was most appropriate for PSCs, especially those working with peacekeeping operations and in war zones.74 In addition, the FAC recommended rejecting Option 6. In its response, the government remained undecided on the issue although it did recognise that a code might be desirable even if it was not a sufficient form of regulation on its own.75 After this flurry of activity in 2002, progress on the issue stalled until it hit the headlines in 2003 after major combat operations were declared over in Iraq. PSCs quickly became the third-largest contributor to the war (after the US and UK contingents) and concerns about their lack of regulation prompted Jack Straw, among others, to re-ignite the debate.76 Events in Iraq contributed to the UK debate in several respects. First, they highlighted the massive sums of money involved in the private security industry. The managing director of Janusian, for instance,


suggested contracts in Iraq ‘boosted British military companies’ revenues from £200 million before the war to over £1 billion, making security by far Britain’s most lucrative post-war export to Iraq’.77 There were many examples. Aegis Defence Services UK, for instance, won a contract worth $293 million over three years to provide 75 teams of eight men to guard Iraqi government installations after the handover of sovereignty.78 Similarly, Global Risk Strategies went from being a twoman team before the invasion of Afghanistan to employing over 1000 guards in Iraq, while Erinys, another UK firm founded by an ex-SAS officer was overseeing a 14,000 strong force.79 Second, as David Isenberg observed, the success of PSCs in Iraq highlighted the extent to which reportedly exhausted British special forces were resigning in record numbers to take more lucrative jobs as private security guards with firms such as Armour Security and Olive Security in Iraq and Afghanistan. In response, the British army started offering year-long ‘sabbaticals’.80 Finally, Options 3–5 looked far more likely after October 2003 when Blair’s government granted permission for the export of sub-machine guns and pistols for use by PSCs in Iraq.81 It is quite likely that events in Iraq will be crucial in deciding the outcome of the UK debate about PSC regulation. They also proved a ‘defining issue’ not only during Blair’s second term, ‘but of his entire premiership’.82 Consequently, they provide the focus of the final chapter.

9 Iraq and Labour’s Moment in the Middle East

On 20 March 2003, US, British and Australian troops invaded Iraq as part of a US-led coalition. The stated objective was to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime in order to implement the demands set out in a series of UN Security Council resolutions. Britain was the only state other than the US to ‘commit more than a token military force’, comprising nearly one-third of the invasion’s land power and ‘a significant portion of the air power’.1 Within four weeks US forces had taken control of Baghdad and on 2 May President Bush declared that major combat operations were over and the coalition was victorious. Victory did not mean the end of violence and by 10 May 2005, 1785 coalition troops were dead, including 88 Britons and 1606 Americans, the vast majority of whom died after Bush’s declaration of victory. In a breach of Article 16 of the First Geneva Convention of 1949, the coalition made no attempt to count the number of Iraqi casualties. Those who supported the war argued that the existing policies of containment were both ineffective and immoral and that toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime by force had become the only way to break the international impasse and ensure that Iraq complied with the UN Security Council’s demands.2 From this perspective, the invasion removed a regime that had long highlighted international society’s impotence in implementing international law. For some, the real scandal was that Hussein was left in power until 2003. Critics of the invasion took a different view and levelled numerous charges against Blair’s government. The following five were among the most credible. First, as the only other permanent member of the UN Security Council, UK support was the key ingredient that gave the USled coalition a significant degree of credibility.3 Second, in a broader sense, Blair’s statements had played a crucial role in legitimising the war, 185


particularly in the US where many Americans were alarmed by their own President’s rhetoric.4 The Financial Times, for instance, cited research from the National Journal that indicated 77 per cent of Americans said ‘we absolutely need to have British support in the event of war in Iraq’.5 Third, critics charged that far from increasing the UK’s ability to influence US foreign policy, Blair’s approach actually lost friends in Washington because of his failure to deliver on his promise to bring France and Germany into the coalition and to gain clear Security Council authorisation for an invasion.6 Fourth, there were problems with the way in which the US and UK governments understood the Iraqi threat and ‘sold’ it to their publics and to other governments, not least because they ‘seem to have been caught up in a massive exercise in group think’.7 Most notoriously, this process encouraged the publication of the UK’s so-called ‘dodgy dossier’ in January 2003, much of it plagiarised from an old PhD thesis. Fifth, critics suggested that the diplomatic debacle surrounding the war had prompted Blair’s bridge between the US and Europe to collapse at both ends.8 This chapter provides a critical analysis of these issues in three parts. It is organised around my opinion that the 9/11 terrorist attacks fundamentally altered the political context in which UK and crucially US policy towards Iraq was made. Consequently, the first section investigates the UK’s Iraq policy before 9/11. It focuses on the most controversial aspects of UK policy, namely, the effects of UN economic sanctions and the use of military force, the most widely debated example being Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. During this period, I suggest that the UK’s strategy towards Iraq could be characterised as one of ‘contain and punish’. The second section discusses UK policy after 9/11 and suggests that the government’s strategy towards Saddam Hussein’s regime shifted from ‘contain and punish’ to one of ‘punish and remove’. Here, I address three central questions: why did the UK invade Iraq in March 2003, was the invasion legal and was it effective? The final section analyses the invasion’s wider impact on three important issues in UK foreign policy, namely, the war on terrorism, the Middle East peace process and transatlantic relations. In relation to Labour’s underlying foreign policy commitments, neoliberalism played a back-seat role in the UK’s Iraq policy. Nevertheless, its presence could be detected in Blair’s support for the idea that winning the fight over liberal democratic ideals in Iraq would pave the way for further democratisation in the Middle East.9 Furthermore, post-Hussein Iraq was to be constructed according to the familiar neoliberal blueprint. In contrast, in different ways, Atlanticism,

Iraq and Labour in the Middle East 187

multilateralism and moralism were crucial in influencing the UK approach. Once again, Blair’s government ultimately decided that what it called ‘effective multilateralism’ was more important than working through permanent institutions, in this case the UN. In relation to Iraq, this was primarily because the pull of Atlanticism proved to be stronger within Blair’s government than its commitment to seek clear and explicit Security Council authorisation for the invasion. Finally, although Saddam’s appalling record on human rights was not seriously contested, moralism also played a significant role in UK policy. Initially, however, humanitarian arguments played a secondary role to arguments about WMD in forging the UK’s case for war. It was not until mid-February 2003 that Blair seriously emphasised the humanitarian case for intervention and the ethical costs of not going to war.10

Before 9/11: contain and punish Before 9/11, the UK’s Iraq policy could be summed up as contain and punish. This was achieved through the use of the UN Special Commission (Iraq, UNSCOM) and (from December 1999) the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Iraq, UNMOVIC) inspectors, military force and UN economic sanctions. Within the UK, the first two policies attracted relatively little controversy compared to the question of sanctions. In the UN Security Council, however, the UK and the US walked a consistently lonely path. The UK’s objective was to ensure Iraq complied with its obligations as set out in Security Council resolution 687 of 3 April 1991. The problem was that like Clinton’s administration in Washington, Blair’s government was convinced that this would never happen while Saddam Hussein’s regime remained in power.11 As a result, Blair was prepared to acknowledge that ‘a broad objective of our policy is to remove Saddam Hussein and to do all that we can to achieve that. … If we can possibly find the means of removing him, we will.’12 Although Hussein’s regime had displayed at best partial and reluctant cooperation with the UN since 1991, once both London and Washington began openly talking of the need to bring about his downfall, any incentive Hussein had to cooperate was dramatically eroded. But this situation also put the US and the UK in a difficult position because although the Security Council resolutions made numerous demands on Hussein’s regime, they did not authorise overthrowing it by force. As it turned out, three aspects of UK policy proved particularly controversial. The first was the way in which Blair’s government turned a


blind eye to Turkey’s military incursions into the northern no-fly zone, ostensibly in pursuit of supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.13 At times, British pilots patrolling the no-fly zone were reportedly ordered to return to their base while Turkish aircraft conducted bombing operations against Kurdish targets.14 The second main controversy revolved around the use of military force. Before 9/11, Blair’s government, in conjunction with Washington, conducted sporadic air strikes against targets in Iraq. By mid-December 1998, the UK had conducted some 15,500 sorties in and around the nofly zones.15 These were justified on two grounds: to protect the ‘safe havens’ and no-fly zones established after the end of the 1991 war, and to enforce the disarmament provisions of Security Council resolution 687. The most hotly debated of these operations was Desert Fox. This began on 16 December 1998 after Richard Butler had ordered the evacuation of the UNSCOM inspectors (without consulting the UN Secretary-General). The operation entailed a four-day air campaign ‘to degrade the ability of Saddam Hussein to build and use weapons of mass destruction, including command and control and delivery systems, and to diminish the threat that Saddam Hussein poses to his neighbours by weakening his military capability’.16 Although both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats supported Desert Fox, its military effectiveness and its legal basis were controversial. In military terms, the main question marks were over the extent to which the air strikes were proportionate and actually succeeded in destroying allegedly hidden arsenals and production facilities. More fundamentally, Desert Fox ensured that the inspectors would be kept out of Iraq, further hampering the disarmament process.17 Nevertheless, it was the legal basis of the operation that proved most controversial. Although Blair had suggested in early 1998 that there was ample basis to use force to ‘enforce the Security Council’s will’,18 the UK’s official legal justification for Desert Fox was that resolutions 1154 (2 March 1998) and especially 1205 (5 November 1998) ‘implicitly revived the authorisation to use force given in Resolution 678 (1990)’.19 In the UK government’s opinion, it was well established that the authorization to use force given by the Security Council in [resolution 678] 1990 may be revived if the Council decides that there has been a sufficiently serious breach of the conditions laid down by the Council for the ceasefire. In [resolution 1205] … the Council has condemned the Iraqi decision to cease all cooperation as a flagrant violation of its obligations. This resolution sends a clear message to Iraq: resume cooperation now.20


The problem was that Blair’s government found itself promoting a minority view that failed to convince more than a handful of states on the Security Council. Japan was the only Security Council member to speak in support of Desert Fox compared to six members who spoke directly against it. China, for instance, called Desert Fox a ‘groundless’ and ‘unprovoked military attack’, while Russia claimed that nowhere in the Security Council’s resolutions was the authority granted for the US and UK to use force.21 Russia went a step further by recalling its ambassadors from Washington and London in protest at the operation. There were four main problems with the UK’s legal argument. The first was that resolutions 1154 and 1205 did not contain the phrase ‘all necessary means’, which following resolution 678 had become the standard pseudonym for using military force. Taken in isolation this was not a decisive factor. However, combined with the other problems (discussed here) it certainly did not help the UK’s case. Second, even given that Iraq was in material breach of its obligations under resolution 687 at the time of the invasion, it was far from clear that the US and UK were authorised to act as the judge, jury and executioner of what constituted the ‘will’ of the Security Council. For one thing, it seems fairly clear that there is ‘no entitlement’ for individual member states ‘to enforce prior Security Council resolutions by the use of force’.22 Moreover, as Marc Weller argued, if such a situation was permitted to occur unchallenged, it would lead to very significant instability. One only needs to flick through the over 1000 Security Council resolutions and identify the numerous situations where the ‘will’ of the Council has not been fully and unconditionally complied with to appreciate this point. Even in relation to the significantly smaller number of demands of the Council made in the context of Chapter VII, this theory would be immediately rejected by the US and UK if it were to be advanced by other states.23 A third problem with the UK’s argument was that its attempts (with the US) to secure a more forceful resolution in June 1996 and November 1997 failed. Indeed, as Weller noted, ‘it was of course the very fact that the Council was not willing to grant a fresh mandate which … led to the invention of the theory of the material breach [of resolution 687] in the first place’.24 Finally, there was the vexed question of whether the authorisation to use military force contained in resolution 678 could be revived in the manner the UK government claimed. On the one hand, resolution 678


set no time limit for achieving its objectives, which were primarily to ensure that ‘Iraq comply fully with resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions … and to restore international peace and security in the area’ (paragraphs 2 and 3). Consequently, although a formal ceasefire was accepted between Iraq and the UN in April 1991, subsequent resolutions clearly identified the behaviour of Hussein’s regime as a threat to ‘international peace and security in the area’. In addition, in January 1993 the UN Secretary-General, Boutros BoutrosGhali, publicly accepted the argument that the authorisation to use force set out in resolution 678 could be revived when he justified a coalition raid on Iraqi missile launchers.25 Finally, a legal basis for the principle of revival following the violation of certain provisions of a ceasefire agreement can be found in the chapter on armistices in the 1907 Hague Regulations on land war.26 On the other hand, it seems entirely plausible to conclude that the authorisation to use force contained within resolution 678 ended when the formal conditions for a ceasefire (set out in resolution 687) were officially accepted by Iraq in its identical letters to the president of the Security Council and the Secretary-General on 6 April 1991.27 From this perspective, resolution 678 could not be ‘implicitly revived’ by resolution 1205. Any ‘revival’ would need to be either explicit or, more likely, in the form of a new resolution authorising the use of force. In addition, as the chief legal adviser to the FCO (1991–99), Frank Berman suggested, ‘a truly perpetual authorization to resort to force at the option of the authorized party would appear to be indistinguishable from the delegation away, if only in part, of the Council’s “primary responsibility” under Article 24 of the Charter’.28 In sum, not only was Desert Fox’s military effectiveness questionable, it failed to win the support of a majority of Security Council members and was, at best, based on a precarious legal argument and, at worst, illegal. The third area of controversy surrounding UK policy concerned the impact of the UN’s economic sanctions on Iraq. Adopted under Security Council resolution 661 (6 August 1990), they included a ban on all trade, an oil embargo, the suspension of international flights, an arms embargo, a freezing of Iraqi government financial assets and a prohibition on financial transactions. Exemptions were allowed for medical supplies and foodstuffs, most of which were to be obtained through the Oil for Food programme that entered into force in December 1996. However, this programme neither altered the underlying conditions of Iraq’s decrepit economy, nor enabled enough foodstuffs and medical


supplies to reach the country’s weakest citizens. In addition, Security Council members were able to place ‘holds’ upon items they considered could also be used in the manufacture of WMD. In practice, only the US and UK governments actively proposed such ‘holds’. As Abbas Alnasrawi suggested, the humanitarian emergency in Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War was the product of seven main factors: the prominence of the oil sector in the country’s economy, the centralisation of political power around Saddam Hussein, forced displacement of certain ethnic minorities, the Iran–Iraq war, the invasion of Kuwait, the Gulf War and the UN’s economic sanctions.29 Thus, while the sanctions were not solely responsible for the country’s humanitarian emergency they were part of the explanation for it. Indeed, Alnasrawi’s list suggests the humanitarian emergency was ‘a direct result of decisions taken by two political centres of power’: the Hussein regime and the UN Security Council (led on this issue by Washington and London).30 This was not a position accepted by Blair. As he told the House of Commons in mid-December 1998, ‘we reject claims that the Iraqi people are suffering because of sanctions. … It is the Iraqi Government … who bear responsibility for the suffering of the Iraqi people.’31 Despite this – and many similar assertions by Labour ministers – it was clear that the UN sanctions, which were kept in place primarily through the US and UK veto power, contributed to the humanitarian suffering.32 It was also suggested that in doing so they violated international humanitarian law, including Article 54 of Protocol I of the 1949 Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The central issue facing UK foreign policy-makers was thus whether the indifference of Saddam Hussein’s regime to the plight of the vast majority of his people33 and his refusal to fully comply with the conditions set out in resolution 687 justified the continuation of economic sanctions against Iraq’s entire population. The official answer was that they did. Consequently, Blair’s government continued to advocate the collective punishment of an entire population for the decisions taken by Saddam Hussein’s regime, a position that was widely condemned by several senior UN officials and commentators alike.34 Three important factors suggested that the UK’s position was immoral, probably illegal, and unlikely to be effective. First, according to Cortright and Lopez, the sanctions were unlikely to be effective because no concessions were given to Baghdad when it complied with some of its obligations. This left no incentive for Saddam Hussein’s regime ‘to take further steps towards compliance’ and meant that the ‘sanctions lost the bargaining leverage so crucial to their effectiveness’.35 Second, since 1994 the UN


Security Council had decided that all subsequent sanctions regimes would be of the targeted or ‘smart’ variety rather than the more comprehensive type imposed upon Iraq. This decision was the result of a consensus that general trade sanctions were a blunt instrument that punished entire populations (especially their weakest members) without the realistic prospect of changing their government’s behaviour. This left the Iraqi sanctions representing a unique example of a generally discredited instrument of policy. Third, five years later, after ‘a wideranging review’, Blair’s government also launched ‘a new policy of better targeted “smarter” sanctions’ that would ‘sharpen the focus and effectiveness of sanctions whilst trying to minimise their impact on ordinary people, including children, and on our own commercial and economic interests’. However, it continued to justify its unique policy towards Iraq by suggesting that in spite of its review’s conclusions, ‘comprehensive sanctions’ would continue in ‘cases where the objective is to isolate and contain a very serious transgressor’.36 Before 9/11, therefore, Blair’s government pursued a strategy aimed at containing and punishing Saddam Hussein’s regime. The problem was that there are good grounds to believe its methods were morally dubious, politically ineffective and illegal.

After 9/11: punish and remove The UK’s goal of ensuring Iraq’s compliance with the will of the Security Council remained uncontroversial throughout the crisis. The bone of contention was how best to achieve that outcome. For Blair’s government, 9/11 was the key turning point when its faith in its contain and punish strategy started to erode.37 As Blair told the Butler Committee, 9/11 had convinced him that ‘you have to say “Right we are not going to allow the development of WMD in breach of the will of the international community to continue.” ’38 The resulting change in attitude prompted the UK to revise its Iraq strategy from contain and punish to one of punish and remove. This shift placed the spectre of war firmly on the policy agenda. Within 18 months the war had begun. This section analyses this strategy by addressing three questions in turn: what factors persuaded Blair’s government to invade Iraq, was its decision legal and was it effective? Why did the UK invade Iraq? Much ink has been spilled debating why the UK invaded Iraq. Blair’s government added to the confusion by persistently altering its emphasis


between the threat posed by the nexus of WMD and terrorism, Security Council credibility and humanitarian intervention. The immediate pretext used by Blair’s government to justify the timing of the invasion was the French President’s statement on 10 March 2003 that France would veto any resolution authorising military force ‘whatever the circumstances’. In parliament Blair stated, We very nearly had the majority agreement [for a so-called ‘second resolution’]. … Then … France said that it would veto a second resolution, whatever the circumstances. … we are told that any resolution that authorises force in the event of non-compliance will be vetoed – not just opposed, but vetoed and blocked. … The tragedy is that had such a resolution ensued and had the UN come together and united – and if other troops had gone there, not just British and American troops – Saddam Hussein might have complied.39 In fact, the UK was never close to securing a ‘second resolution’ authorising military force.40 As the UK’s Ambassador to the UN told Blair prior to Chirac’s outburst, he could only promise four Security Council votes since the so-called ‘middle six’ states had concluded there was diplomatic safety in numbers and none of them wished to provide the crucial vote authorising war.41 Chirac’s statement thus became what The Economist called ‘a useful scapegoat’ for Blair’s government.42 It also served as little more than a distraction from the reality that the invasion’s March start-date was dictated by the Pentagon’s preferred military timetable.43 In retrospect, the primary factors that led the UK to war seem relatively clear. They were the combination of Labour’s commitment to Atlanticism; the psychological impact of 9/11, which altered the calculus of threat in Downing Street; and the fact that Saddam Hussein’s continued intransigence led Blair’s government to conclude the status quo in Iraq was increasingly intolerable. As discussed throughout this book, one of the central foreign policy commitments of Blair government’s was to avoid a situation where the US would go it alone. This was especially important in the Iraqi case where Washington and London had been consistently isolated within the Security Council since the mid-1990s. Blair’s government went to war, in part, because it believed the benefits of demonstrating its solidarity with the US would outweigh the potential costs.44 Yet while Downing Street agreed with US objectives in Iraq, it did not subscribe to all of its arguments, most notably the idea of an alliance between Iraq


and al-Qa’ida espoused by the US Vice-President and the Pentagon. Consequently, while the UK’s support for Bush came without conditions, it did come with two requests attached: that the US should pursue its objectives in Iraq through the UN and that it should put some serious effort into resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The first request initially made much headway and despite some strong internal opposition within Bush’s administration, during 2002 the US pursued the UN route. The highlights of this approach were Bush’s speech to the UN General Assembly on 12 September and the passing of resolution 1441 in November.45 This request was made partly for legal reasons,46 partly to make a potential war more palatable to the UK public and partly to prove to Washington that the Security Council could be effective if it was treated seriously. This is why Blair, like Bush, emphasised that the UN route must involve ‘a way of dealing with the matter rather than a means of avoiding it’.47 When it became clear in 2003 that the Security Council could not agree on the means to resolve the issue, Blair proved willing to drop this particular request. In contrast, as discussed later, the second request concerning the Israeli–Palestinian conflict made virtually no practical headway. Ultimately, the importance of Atlanticism was demonstrated most dramatically when on 9 March 2003 Blair rejected Bush’s offer that UK troops could drop out of the coalition and instead arrive after the conflict as peacekeepers.48 The second major reason why the UK went to war was that 9/11 altered the official calculus of threat in both Washington and London (see also Chapter 2). In Downing Street, however, unlike the Pentagon, the practical focus remained on Afghanistan until at least spring 2002. Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before Iraq also figured in the UK’s calculations, primarily because of its history on WMD. As Blair explained to the House of Commons, After 11 September, it was time to take an active, as opposed to reactive, position on the whole question of weapons of mass destruction. … [I]n the end, my judgment was that after 11 September, we could no longer run the risk – that instead of waiting for the potential threat of terrorism and WMD to come together, we had to get out and get after it. One part of that was removing the training ground of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The other was taking a stand on weapons of mass destruction, and the place to take that stand was Iraq, whose regime was the only one ever to have used WMD and was subject to 12 years of UN resolutions and weapons inspections that turned out to be unsatisfactory. Although in neither case was the nature of the regime


the reason for conflict, it was decisive for me in the judgment as to the balance of risk for action or inaction.49 Evidence for this shift in thinking was produced in the Butler Report. Amongst other things, this showed that by March 2002, senior government officials had concluded that not only would Hussein’s regime never meet the Security Council’s demands but that ‘despite the considerable difficulties, the use of overriding force in a ground campaign is the only option that we can be confident will remove Saddam and bring Iraq back into the international community’.50 The support for regime change was not new – as noted earlier, Blair had indicated his willingness to pursue it since late 1998. However, such clear advice from his officials narrowed down the mechanisms to achieve Iraq’s compliance to a list of just one: invasion. Shortly afterwards, at a meeting with Bush in early April, Blair once again reiterated the link between 9/11 and the need to reject the previous UK policy of containing Iraq. In Blair’s words, to allow WMD to be developed by a state like Iraq without let or hindrance would be grossly to ignore the lessons of September 11 and we will not do it. The message to Saddam is clear: he has to let the inspectors back in – anyone, any time, any place that the international community demands. If necessary, the action should be military – and again, if necessary and justified, it should involve regime change.51 After 9/11 the UK’s threat assessment of Saddam’s regime began to coalesce around three elements: the regime’s propensity for aggression; its possession of WMD, its programmes to develop WMD, and its prior use of WMD against its neighbours and its own population and the threat of terrorism.52 The first element was uncontroversial, although after the 1991 Gulf War and years of sanctions Iraq’s conventional armed forces posed rather less of a threat to its neighbours and rather more to Saddam Hussein’s domestic opponents. The components of the second element were crucial. Here the debate revolved around whether Iraq’s intention to reconstitute its WMD programmes – probably only after it had constructed effective means of delivery – was a sufficient basis for invasion or whether it was necessary to prove Hussein’s regime possessed actual weapons of mass destruction. As for the third element, the UK took a different stance to vocal members of Bush’s administration such as Dick Cheney. Blair’s government did not claim an alliance existed between Iraq and al-Qa’ida. Rather its point was that after


9/11 terrorists and states trading in WMD were likely to work together in the future and that Iraq was a prime candidate for such activity.53 In sum, as Lawrence Freedman argued, 9/11 ‘changed the terms of the security debate by establishing the notion that potential threats had to be dealt with before they became actual’.54 Blair’s government viewed Iraq as such a potential threat and acted accordingly. The third main factor that made war a plausible option for Blair’s government was its conclusion that both the status quo and the other alternatives were unsatisfactory for dealing with Saddam Hussein’s continued intransigence.55 First of all, what Adam Roberts described as ‘the spectacular failure of the UN Security Council in March 2003 to adopt any coherent line on Iraq’, posed a significant challenge to the institution’s effectiveness and credibility.56 This view was especially evident in Washington but (as noted earlier) it also had powerful supporters in Downing Street, most notably the Prime Minister, who believed failure to deal with Iraq’s WMD would embolden rogue states and terrorists alike.57 The problem was that while Iraq was perceived as being a serious and growing threat, Downing Street lost its faith in the existing international responses. This put the Security Council in the embarrassing situation of failing to implement its copious demands upon Iraq after 12 years of trying. For Blair’s government, the status quo was thus directly eroding the Security Council’s credibility. It also involved what Blair called the ‘Straw paradox’ – the fact that talking up the prospect of an invasion made one less likely because only a credible threat of military action could convince Hussein to allow the inspectors back in and let them do their job uninterrupted.58 As Blair argued in mid-2004, ‘The only reason why he [Saddam Hussein] ever let the inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and British troops on his doorstep.’59 Second, Blair’s government came to the conclusion that containment was no longer enough. By mid-1999, for instance, senior UK officials were of the opinion that containment was not satisfactory because it did ‘not produce rapid or decisive results; it [was] resource-intensive, requiring constant diplomatic effort and a significant military presence; and it [was] not always easy to justify to public opinion, as criticisms of UK/US air strikes and of the humanitarian impact of sanctions [had] shown’.60 According to Christoph Bluth, the last point about the humanitarian impact of containment was particularly important and neglected by the government’s critics. He therefore chastised ‘proponents of containment’, such as Charles Kennedy, Menzies Campbell and Robin Cook, for failing to engage ‘with the argument that containment itself entailed


human costs on a scale arguably greater than those that would be incurred in a war to depose the regime’.61 The government’s concern that containment was not seriously curtailing Iraq’s WMD programmes combined with public scepticism about the need for war prompted it to release an unprecedented dossier, Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government. This was published under the authority of the JIC on 24 September 2002. In introducing the dossier to parliament, Blair reiterated the fact that despite containment policies Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut down; it is up and running now.’62 Similarly, in the dossier’s foreword Blair described the threat from Iraq as ‘serious and current’, a subtle but important step short of identifying an imminent threat. In this sense, the government thought the status quo was both morally unacceptable and was eroding the credibility of the Security Council. Combined with the Council’s inability to agree on a middle road between war and further inspections that fitted the Pentagon’s military timetable, Blair’s government decided that war was the least worst option. Was the invasion legal? The legal basis for the UK’s participation in the war was publicly set out by the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith on 17 March 2003: Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. All of these resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows the use of force for the express purpose of restoring international peace and security: 1. In Resolution 678, the Security Council authorised force against Iraq, to eject it from Kuwait and to restore peace and security in the area. 2. In Resolution 687, which set out the ceasefire conditions after Operation Desert Storm, the Security Council imposed continuing obligations on Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction in order to restore international peace and security in the area. Resolution 687 suspended but did not terminate the authority to use force under Resolution 678. 3. A material breach of Resolution 687 revives the authority to use force under Resolution 678. 4. In Resolution 1441, the Security Council determined that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of Resolution 687, because it has


5.

6.

7. 8. 9.

not fully complied with its obligations to disarm under that resolution. The Security Council in Resolution 1441 gave Iraq ‘a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations’ and warned Iraq of the ‘serious consequences’ if it did not. The Security Council also decided in Resolution 1441 that, if Iraq failed at any time to comply with and cooperate fully in the implementation of Resolution 1441, that would constitute a further material breach. It is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply and therefore Iraq was at the time of Resolution 1441 and continues to be in material breach. Thus, the authority to use force under Resolution 678 has revived and so continues today. Resolution 1441 would in terms have provided that a further decision of the Security Council to sanction force was required if that had been intended. Thus, all that Resolution 1441 requires is reporting to and discussion by the Security Council of Iraq’s failures, but not an express further decision to authorise force.63

As with Operation Desert Fox, the UK’s legal case rested on the revival of the authorisation to use military force given to ‘Member States cooperating with the Government of Kuwait’ in resolution 678 (paragraph 2) in order to enforce the implementation of certain UN Security Council resolutions. The Attorney-General’s argument aroused major controversy within the UK, not least when the holders of the Cambridge and Oxford chairs in international law, James Crawford and Vaughan Lowe, both publicly rejected the government’s argument.64 The Attorney-General’s opinion was criticised as being inter alia, in ‘open contempt for international law’; ‘flimsy’ and ‘based on a fiction’; ‘scraping the bottom of the legal barrel’, and as lacking ‘any legal justification’.65 It was notable that although the very fact that the UK made a legal argument to justify its actions suggests the first charge is inaccurate, there were several grounds for taking the other charges seriously. First of all, some experts reiterated the argument that there was simply ‘no known doctrine of the revival of authorisations in Security Council resolution [sic], on which some implied revival could be based’.66 It was also pointed out that operative paragraph four of resolution 686 (2 March 1991) explicitly stated that the authorisation to use force set out in resolution 678 would ‘remain valid’ only ‘during the period required for Iraq to comply with’ a list of ceasefire obligations that did not include disarmament. However, as


discussed earlier in relation to Desert Fox some, albeit weak, support for such a doctrine did exist. Second, the UK’s interpretation of resolution 1441 was contested. Michael Byers, for instance, listed several problems with the Attorney-General’s interpretation of resolution 1441: it merely recalled rather than explicitly revived resolution 678, it neither specified the legal consequences of Iraq being in material breach nor contained the phrase ‘use all necessary means’, and it stated that if evidence of further non-compliance was found the Council would ‘convene immediately’ and would ‘remain seized of the matter’.67 Third, the UK government explicitly confirmed that there was no ‘automaticity’ in resolution 1441. Importantly, however, Greenstock did not suggest that the lack of automaticity meant that another resolution was required. Rather he said that, ‘If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in paragraph 12 [of resolution 1441].’68 Fourth, before the invasion the UK formally withdrew its draft resolution that would have explicitly authorised force against Iraq because it was clear that it would not gain the necessary votes in the Security Council. That Blair’s government expended so much diplomatic capital to pass a further resolution explicitly authorising force suggests that it recognised the precarious nature of its case for invasion. The government’s claims that such a resolution was politically desirable but legally unnecessary were widely viewed as unpersuasive and actually served to undermine its case.69 Finally, the government’s case was weakened still further by ‘the doubtful quality of the evidence that Iraq still possessed weapons of mass destruction in significant quantities’ and later ‘the intervening countries’ lack of preparedness for the administration of Iraq’.70 In sum, there were strong grounds for challenging the Attorney-General’s opinion. On the other hand, as Byers noted, there were also several ways in which resolution 1441 supported the UK’s case. First, resolution 1441 clearly stated that Iraq was in ‘material breach’ of its obligations under resolution 687 and was being given ‘a final opportunity to comply’. Second, the preamble’s multiple references to resolution 678 supported the assertion that it remained in force. Third, the resolution did not expressly state that further action by the Council required a new resolution. Instead, it stated that the Council need only ‘convene … to consider the situation’.71 In addition, as Christoph Bluth observed, resolution 1441 was itself intended ‘to compel an end to the conflict with Iraq over proscribed weapons activities, not to initiate another period of indefinite containment’.72 What else could the phrase ‘a final opportunity to comply’ (para. 2) mean? Finally, it is also noteworthy that in


contrast to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo where a Russian-sponsored resolution condemning the Alliance’s actions was defeated by 12 votes to 3, no such resolution was put before the Security Council in the Iraq case. Indeed, a secondary objective of the UK’s efforts to obtain a ‘second resolution’ was precisely to ensure that ‘no hostile resolution was tabled and we were not condemned for going to war’.73 On the other hand, not being able to defeat such a resolution denied the UK the opportunity to claim the moral high ground as it had in the Kosovo crisis.74 It should be stressed that the vast majority of states within the Security Council (13 out of 15) rejected the UK’s legal argument. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that as Byers put it, the UK’s legal argument is ‘at least plausible’ and that the Security Council members had passed resolution 1441 with their eyes open to the ambiguities contained within it, especially the lack of an agreed mechanism to determine what level of Iraqi non-compliance would trigger war.75 In other words, resolution 1441 was intentionally ambiguous. This allowed those states worried about the determination of the US-led coalition to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime come what may ‘to cushion the impact of any such war on the existing rules and institutions governing the use of force, even if that meant providing the United States and Britain with a more credible legal justification’.76 For those states, including France and Russia, resolution 1441 could be interpreted as ‘an exercise in legal damage control’.77 For Blair’s government, resolution 1441 provided enough legal cover to allow political factors to take over. Indeed, as the Attorney-General himself noted, this was nothing new: in Desert Fox and Allied Force, the UK had ‘participated in military action on the basis of advice from my predecessors that the legality of the action under international law was no more than reasonably arguable’.78 And once political factors took over, the most pressing issue was not whether the invasion was legal or illegal but whether it would be effective. Was the invasion effective? In a narrow military sense, the war was incredibly successful inasmuch as it toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in less than six weeks and with relatively few coalition casualties (the coalition did not provide an estimate of Iraqi casualties). And despite the coalition’s military preparations to face attacks from Iraq’s infamous WMD, no such attack took place. By mid-December 2003, Saddam Hussein was in custody and would face trial. During the war British forces successfully carried out four main missions in southern Iraq.79 The first two were to prevent the torching of the oil wells in the Rumaila fields and the dumping of raw petroleum


into the sea as had happened in 1991. Third, the British were charged with taking charge of the port of Umm Qasr, the hub for humanitarian aid flows to the Shia in the south of the country. The fourth objective was to secure Iraq’s second city, Basra. This was facilitated in part by British troops investing heavily in building up an intelligence network in the city before the war began. British troops achieved all these goals while suffering remarkably few casualties. Only seven out of more than 1000 well heads in the region were set alight and British troops successfully took control of the gas–oil separation facilities that would be critical for the resumption of Iraq’s oil exports. Like the US forces, the British struggled to stop widespread looting in Basra – although it was less pervasive than in Baghdad – and were unable to prevent vigilante justice against looters and some Baath officials. On a more positive note, British troops proved quite capable of effectively interacting with their US allies and displayed an impressive ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances throughout the war. In Baghdad US forces proved less able to deal with resistance from insurgents. Their efforts were hampered in part because of Washington’s lack of planning for what would happen after the end of major combat operations and its reluctance to involve its military in peacekeeping and so-called nation building operations.80 The Pentagon, for instance, did not begin planning for these circumstances until 20 January 2003. It therefore came as little surprise that one senior UK official in Iraq described the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid as a ‘shambles’.81 Legal controversy also re-appeared when one week into the war, the Attorney-General wrote a confidential memorandum to Blair suggesting that ‘a further Security Council resolution is needed to authorise imposing reform and reconstruction of Iraq and its government’.82 This fitted in with the earlier UK desire for a larger – albeit undefined – role for the UN in post-war Iraq.83 At this stage, however, it posed the practical problem of winning Security Council support and it was not until 22 May that resolution 1483 was passed. Among other things this ended the economic sanctions imposed upon Iraq and gave the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) temporary UN authorisation to run Iraq until a permanent government was established. Under Paul Bremer’s direction, the CPA made what one analyst called ‘two monumental mistakes’ (reportedly on the advice of Iraqi exiles such as Ahmad Chalabi): disbanding the Iraqi army and adopting a ‘clumsy method of de-Baathification’.84 These errors were compounded by the Pentagon’s reluctance to deploy sufficient numbers of infantry and police to prevent widespread looting after Saddam Hussein’s fall or to contain insurgents.


In addition, as Charles Tripp observed, the CPA’s shifting approach to state-building suffered from at least three contradictions: (1) after disbanding Iraq’s armed forces it tried to build a ‘security state’ whilst simultaneously tolerating and even encouraging the development of local militias; (2) it claimed to offer Iraqi’s a democratic future but tried to ensure that only selected (primarily pro-Western, liberal and secular) ‘representatives’ could set the parameters of the future political order and (3) the proposed secular, liberal democratic order was supposed to be brought about, in part, by placing resources in the hands of ‘traditional authorities’, such as clerics and tribal leaders. Tripp concluded that the coalition had failed to grasp important aspects of Iraqi society and politics and that overall, Washington ‘had made things worse for itself, and for the Iraqis, on the security front at a number of levels’.85 The UK was represented on the CPA first by Blair’s former private secretary, John Sawers, and then, from September 2003, by Jeremy Greenstock. Both men found it virtually impossible to influence decision-making to any significant degree.86 In addition, UK firms were not favoured in the parcelling out of contracts for reconstruction under US auspices. In July 2003, a 25-member, multi-ethnic Iraqi Governing Council was inaugurated. However, because it was chosen by and answerable to the CPA and was made up of many long-term exiles it struggled to achieve legitimacy and authority. By the time the Butler Committee published its report in July 2004, Blair remained convinced that the war had been effective. In his response to the Butler Report he stressed that war was justified on three primary grounds: first, that Saddam plainly had the strategic intention of resuming the prohibited weapons programme; secondly, that Saddam was carrying out illicit research, development and procurement activities in support of that programme; and thirdly, that Saddam was developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than that permitted under the relevant UN resolutions.87 He added that no progress would have been made in relation to Libya’s WMD had it not been for the action taken in Iraq.88 Seven months earlier, he had made the highly controversial claim that the Iraq Survey Group had come to similar conclusions.89 In sum, Blair’s government concluded that the war had removed a threat to international peace and security and offered the prospect of further democratisation throughout the Middle East.


A significant step on Iraq’s path to democratisation occurred on 30 January 2005 when a 275-member National Assembly was elected. It was tasked with electing a president and two deputies and drafting a new constitution. The constitution was scheduled to be subject to a referendum by mid-October. Despite these developments, it remains too early to tell what impact the removal of Saddam Hussein will have upon the wider region. Nevertheless, these events clearly demonstrated that military force – even when used effectively – is a blunt instrument for resolving political problems. Military force quickly toppled a weak and unpopular authoritarian regime but it could not heal divisions within Iraq society or turn Iraq into a flourishing liberal democracy. That would require extensive political commitment, probably on a similar scale to that invested by the Allied powers in Germany and Japan after the Second World War. By the end of Labour’s second term in office, no such commitment was evident.

The war’s wider impact The Iraq war also impacted upon several other important elements of UK foreign policy. This section briefly analyses how the invasion affected three of them, namely, the ‘war on terrorism’, the Middle East peace process and transatlantic relations. Before the invasion important voices predicted that it would increase terrorism. For instance, in mid-2002, Field Marshall Lord Brammer, former Chief of the Defence Staff noted that, at worst, a war in Iraq, ‘Far from calming things down … and advancing the “war against terrorism”, which could and should be conducted internationally by other means, it would make things infinitely worse’.90 Similarly, a JIC assessment prepared in February 2003 stated there was no intelligence that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with biological or chemical weapons and that the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime would heighten the threat posed by al-Qa’ida to Western interests. In particular, it ‘would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, including al-Qaida’.91 Given the problems in establishing the causes and motives behind terrorist activities, it is difficult to determine the effect of the Iraq war one way or the other.92 However, there were strong indications that two terrorist attacks in particular were linked to the war in Iraq. The first came in November 2003 when two bombs exploded at the British consulate and the HSBC bank in Istanbul killing 27 people, including the Consul-General, Roger Short. Jack Straw told Blair’s advisers that he


thought Britain had been targeted for its role in the Iraq war.93 Following this attack, in January 2004, the FAC concluded ‘that the threats facing the United Kingdom, both at home and overseas, in the war against terrorism have not diminished’. In particular, ‘the war in Iraq has possibly made terrorist attacks against British nationals and British interests more likely in the short term’.94 The Foreign Secretary disagreed, but supported the Committee’s conclusion that ‘a successful transfer of power [in Iraq] will more widely undermine al Qa’ida’s cause and remove the opportunity for such extremists to exploit coalition action as a context for exhorting Muslims to engage in violence’.95 The second incident was the series of bomb attacks in Madrid on 11 March 2004 that killed approximately 200 people. Although José Maria Aznar’s government initially blamed ETA, it was widely believed that the attacks were linked to Spain’s support for the Iraq war. The following week, Aznar’s government was voted out of office; the decisive factors apparently being that a majority of the population thought the government had manipulated or withheld information about the attacks and that the bombings helped mobilise the Socialist party’s supporters to actually cast their votes.96 The following month, Spain’s new Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero ordered his country’s contingent of some 1300 troops in Iraq to be brought home. It later transpired that the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group was identified as responsible for the atrocity. By spring 2005, one seasoned commentator concluded that the Iraq war and evidence of torture and corruption by occupying forces represented ‘a major recruiting ground for opponents of the west’.97 In contrast, the war’s impact on the Middle East peace process was easier to detect. Indeed, for Blair’s government, the issue of Iraq’s intransigence and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict were directly related. The most positive impact came on 13 January 2003 with the publication of the Road Map to a Permanent Solution to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict. Drawn up by the so-called Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia), the road map set out three phases of activity intended to reach the destination of a ‘final and comprehensive settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict’ based on the construction of two separate states. The plan contained several important silences (including Israel’s ‘separation wall’), some rather one-sided interpretations and vocabulary (in Israel’s favour) and clearly left the Israeli government in the driving seat of the process. Edward Said, for instance, concluded that ‘anyone who believes that the road map offers anything resembling a settlement, or that it tackles the basic issues, is wrong’. This was primarily because it was ‘based on the notion that the


underlying problem has been the ferocity of Palestinian resistance, rather than the occupation that has given rise to it’.98 Nevertheless, the road map was the only plan going and Blair’s government at least seemed satisfied with it. However, despite Blair’s consistent requests for the US to put some serious diplomatic weight behind this proposal, the Bush administration soon lost interest. Tellingly, Bush neither seriously engaged with the issue personally, nor did he dispatch a high-level envoy to the region. Just five months later, Abu Mazen, the Palestinian Prime Minister resigned citing US and Israeli intransigence. One year later, Bush effectively killed off the road map when he agreed to Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from Gaza but to formalise Israel’s occupation of several parts of the West Bank. Bush’s announcement not only put Blair’s government in an awkward position, it also revealed the limited influence the UK actually exercised over Washington’s foreign policy even on an issue that Blair’s government consistently suggested was important to it. Blair’s efforts to salvage the road map after Bush’s announcement produced two notable responses. The first was a letter from 52 former UK diplomats criticising Blair for not pushing Bush harder on the road map and for seeming to endorse the new policies announced by Bush and Sharon, which the diplomats concluded were ‘one-sided and illegal’ and ‘doomed to failure’.99 It was widely believed that the retired ambassadors were publicly voicing concerns that many current diplomats and FCO officials felt unable to do. The second response came from the FAC which in the wake of Bush and Sharon’s announcement, concluded ‘that the Road Map is stalled, possibly fatally’.100 From mid-December 2004, Blair re-engaged in a diplomatic effort to reiterate a five-stage solution to the Israel–Palestine conflict. The modified proposals incorporated the Israeli Gaza disengagement plan and put the onus on the Palestinian side to relinquish violence as a political method. It was hardly the most effective way for the UK to win credibility in the Arab world. Although the Iraq war was said to have ‘produced the worst transatlantic crisis in nearly 50 years’, the practical impacts were mixed.101 On the one hand, as Chapter 3 explained, the war spurred the EU to push forward with an Atlanticist version of the ESDP that fitted comfortably with the thrust of Labour’s foreign policy. Elsewhere, however, the diplomatic fallout from the war was significant and unusually vitriolic. Arguably, the most damaging impact of the Iraq crisis was the rifts it caused within NATO after January 2003. Apparently stung by criticism that it had snubbed NATO over Afghanistan and in an attempt to bolster


the coalition’s international credibility, Washington looked for a way to involve NATO in the preparations for war.102 It decided to ask NATO to help defend Turkey against a possible Iraqi counter-attack in the event of a war. On 22 January, France and Germany blocked NATO planning on the issue from taking place on the grounds that it would entail accepting the idea that war was inevitable. The US and the UK, however, would not take no for an answer and on 10 February a meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels turned into a heated diplomatic slanging-match. After nearly a week of intense criticism from Washington and London in particular, France, Germany and Belgium relented and agreed that NATO would help defend Turkey. NATO was not the only casualty, however, inasmuch as European states also allowed themselves to become publicly divided leaving the idea of a common European foreign policy towards Iraq in shambles. This was most visibly demonstrated through the ‘Letter of Eight’ (30 January 2003) and the statements written by the so-called ‘Vilnius-10’ states (November 2002 and February 2003) declaring their support for the US position on Iraq.103 Finally, what impact did the Iraq war have on Blair’s bridge between the US and Europe? For William Wallace the answer was simple. By 2004, it had ‘collapsed; both ends have given way’.104 Not only that, the ‘special relationship’ was ‘dead’ and with it the era of British Atlanticism was – or at least should be – over. Instead, for Wallace, the Iraq crisis demonstrated that it was time for the UK to abandon the notion that it could exert any real influence over US foreign policy, except perhaps on what Washington considered peripheral issues, and reconcile itself to the idea that only by forging a united front with other European states and the major countries in south and east Asia, could the UK hope to persuade Bush’s second administration that multilateralism was in its best interests. In this sense, the Iraq crisis starkly revealed the tensions between Labour’s commitments to Atlanticism and multilateralism and demonstrated how difficult it would be to reconcile what were, at times, two very different worldviews emanating from Washington and Brussels. However, as the conclusion suggests, papering over contradictions and tensions was in many respects the leitmotif of Labour’s foreign policy during its first two terms.

Conclusions

This book has analysed three aspects of Labour’s foreign policy during its first two terms in office: its underlying commitments, three of its key relationships and five consistently important issues. This concluding section begins by reflecting upon how far Blair’s government lived up to its commitments in light of the evidence presented in Parts II and III of this book. In the spirit of critical analysis outlined in the introduction, it then highlights some of the central contradictions within Labour’s foreign policies.

Committed to what? Between 1997 and 2005, Blair’s government stated numerous, wideranging and at times grandiose and vague foreign policy objectives. Not surprisingly, it failed to achieve some of them, notably many of the targets set out by DFID and the elimination of terrorism as a force in international affairs. Other objectives such as ‘strengthening the Commonwealth’ or ‘engaging with the Islamic world and promoting peaceful political and social reform in Arab countries’ were so vague that it was difficult to tell what success would look like. Beneath the hype and the long lists of targets, however, four underlying commitments were discernable. I characterised these as Atlanticism, multilateralism, neoliberalism and moralism. With regard to Atlanticism, Blair’s government achieved its goal of becoming Washington’s closest ally during both Democrat and Republican administrations. This did not mean that the UK was simply a lapdog to US power or that it could exert no influence over the direction of Washington’s foreign policies. Blair’s government did influence the shape of US foreign policy on some important issues such as the 207


decision to threaten a ground invasion in Kosovo and the decision to push for what turned out to be Security Council resolution 1441. In other areas, such as the issue of immunity from prosecution by the ICC for US personnel, the UK played a significant bridging role between the position of Washington and the majority view in Brussels. There were real limits to the UK’s influence, however, especially during George W. Bush’s administration. And as William Wallace has argued, Blair’s government was often guilty of exaggerating its own abilities on this score.1 That said, if the sole issue on which to judge a state’s foreign policy record was its ability to consistently influence how Washington conducted its international relations, few – arguably only Israel – would pass the test. The Blair government’s Atlanticism thus represented the successful implementation of its decision that the best way to engage the one remaining superpower was by becoming a credible voice within Washington’s bureaucratic politics. This entailed UK support for both the institutional fundamentals of the post-1945 world order and its rejection of calls to construct a multipolar world as proposed by the French government in particular. For Blair’s government, one – if not the – central goal of foreign policy was to use its special relationship with Washington to prevent the US and Europe drifting apart. This objective became increasingly elusive as differences in the worldviews exhibited by Bush’s Republicans and many EU leaders became apparent. For Blair’s critics these differences rendered his bridge analogy unworkable. Instead, the UK would have to choose to support either the Bush doctrine or the EU’s alternative. This was something Blair consistently refused to do. Simply because the task of bringing the US and Europe closer together became more difficult did not make it a misguided policy. Indeed, in some respects it made it more urgent. The question was which worldview would have to compromise most to bring about a (re)convergence? In relation to multilateralism, Labour clearly avoided acting unilaterally in the majority of its foreign policies. In one sense, however, the stark distinction between unilateralism and multilateralism is a false one: within an international society the practical choice is only rarely one of unilateral or multilateral action but rather what type of multilateral action is most appropriate. In the realm of political economy, Labour’s preference was to work through the formal institutions of global governance such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO and to create a neoliberal institutional context in which firms could compete across political borders. With regard to international development, Labour also emphasised

Conclusions 209

the importance of effective partnerships between leading donors, recipients, NGOs and TNCs. Similarly, in the military sphere, Blair’s government often stressed the practical value of ad hoc coalitions to achieve its goals in conjunction with like-minded states. Hence, when the UK used military force abroad in places such as Iraq, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and the DRC, it was often as part of coalitions rather than formal organisations.2 Blair’s government often referred to this as ‘effective’ multilateralism. In turn, this raised the question of whether, despite its protestations to the contrary, Labour subscribed to traditional British pragmatism after all? In many respects, the answer was that it did. What it claimed to reject was that a pragmatic UK foreign policy must be synonymous with realpolitik. With regard to neoliberalism, Labour’s record was distinctly contradictory. On the one hand, Blair’s government understood important concepts such as globalisation and interdependence in neoliberal terms and gave strong practical support to initiatives aimed at liberalising key elements of the international trading and financial orders. It also subscribed to the idea that debt relief for HIPCs should be conditional upon them adopting neoliberal reforms. On the other hand, the limits of Labour’s neoliberalism were clearly evident in its distinctly mercantilist approach to commercial diplomacy and the UK’s arms exporters, and its rejection of what would have been a watershed event in international political economy, the MAI. The simplest explanation for these contradictions was the desire of Blair’s government to court a variety of different constituencies regardless of whether they involved conflicting priorities. While UK firms, for instance, expected government support in breaking into tough foreign markets, international bankers and financiers expected the government to liberalise markets and lower barriers to trade. The relative importance of these different constituencies was reflected in Blair’s third way, which essentially involved adopting a neoliberal framework within which to pursue social democratic reforms. In moral terms, despite later efforts to put Cook’s ‘ethical dimension’ genie back in its bottle, Blair’s government continued to offer ethical justifications for its foreign policies. This was unusual for a British government most of which traditionally relied upon the infinitely malleable idea of ‘the national interest’. Labour’s moralism was notable in at least four respects. First, Blair’s government took the unusual step of explicitly rejecting realpolitik as a basis for its foreign policies. In practice, previous UK governments had also rejected the crude version of realpolitik long ago. Labour’s explicit rejection was thus primarily symbolic. It was also politically expedient inasmuch as it appeared to attract


rather than repel voters. Second, the government certainly had the courage to act on its ethical convictions even though it often failed to specify exactly what these were. In particular, Labour consistently failed to specify which human rights deserved the highest priority and why. Yet this did not stop Blair’s government advancing its own ideas about human rights, development and liberal democracy as universal values that, at times, needed to be promoted by force. Such certainty encouraged the government’s crusading tendencies and aroused consternation among its critics. Finally, Labour’s commitment to moralism is likely to make it harder for subsequent UK governments to close down debates about the ‘ethical dimensions’ of their own foreign policies whether they like it or not.

New Labour, familiar contradictions For all Labour’s invocations of novelty and its emphasis on ‘joined-up’ government, its foreign policies were plagued by some rather familiar philosophical and practical contradictions. In large part, these stemmed from the government’s attempts to satisfy multiple constituencies, some of which had competing agendas. As a consequence, Blair’s government spent considerable effort trying to paper over these contradictions and create the impression that it was pursuing a coherent set of foreign policies. The first set of contradictions revolved around Labour’s commitment to Atlanticism. In theory, Labour’s four commitments to Atlanticism, multilateralism, neoliberalism and moralism were not necessarily incompatible. In practice, however, their coherence hinged on the nature and direction of US foreign policy, something the UK clearly could not control. And since Blair’s government explicitly tied itself to supporting the US this often created tensions, especially after 9/11. The problems occurred when Washington pursued foreign policies that ignored multilateral agreements and institutions that it felt hindered the application of US power. In this context, Labour’s commitment to Atlanticism clashed with its pursuit of multilateralism, at least the formal, institutional variety. At various times, this produced tensions within the UN Security Council, the EU and NATO. With Bush’s re-election in November 2004 and continuing international disagreement over how best to prevent terrorism, this contradiction looked set to continue. Unless Labour alters its commitments, resolving this contradiction will require either a change of attitude within Bush’s administration or the reform of several important international institutions, including the UN. At the time of writing the latter appears more likely than the former.

Conclusions 211

Atlanticism also contradicted some of Labour’s most important moral commitments, with the UK finding itself opposed to Washington on several crucial issues including the ICC, the Kyoto Protocol and the legality of Israel’s ‘targeted killings’. Blair’s government also had to push the US to commit to genuine debt cancellation for the HIPCs and to do more to resolve Africa’s woeful predicament. Legal question marks were also raised over the UK’s intimate military collaboration with Washington on the issue of missile defence and the renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement. A second set of contradictions revolved around Labour’s strong – though not unlimited – support for neoliberal ideas while simultaneously pursuing mercantilist practices, not least through its commercial diplomacy and support for the UK’s arms exporters. This contradiction stemmed from Labour’s desire to be different things to different audiences, presenting itself as both a champion of freeing international markets from political interference and simultaneously using its political influence to distort those markets in favour of UK firms. However, it is also important to acknowledge that this contradiction is not entirely one of Labour’s own making. As Karl Polanyi outlined in his discussion of the ‘double movement’ the strict application of neoliberal principles in practice would be a recipe for political disaster. Since moves to increase the commercialisation of society benefit some groups and disadvantage others, Polanyi argued that there would inevitably come a point when the disadvantaged resist the process, sometimes violently.3 From this perspective, Blair’s government was right to place conditions on its support for neoliberal policies as it did during the MAI negotiations. Indeed, if we take seriously the UN Development Programme’s warning that neoliberal policies contributed to making the 1990s into a ‘decade of despair’ for many of the world’s poorest states, Blair’s government should reflect upon its ongoing support for them. The practical issue may well be whether Labour’s ideas of where the tipping point for Polanyi’s double movement lies match those of the groups who lose out from neoliberal policies. A third contradiction was evident between Labour’s stated desire to champion the democratic rights of foreigners to choose their governments and its strong support for a particular type of liberal market democracy. This tension appeared in the case of the non-negotiable reforms that states had to undertake as part of the HIPC Debt Initiative, the rather one-sided nature of DFID’s development partnerships and in the UK’s support for peace operations that aimed to turn previously war-torn territories such as Bosnia and East Timor into market democracies. On


occasion, as in East Timor and Sierra Leone, Blair’s government used its armed forces to help fight for liberal democracy, although it was well aware that military power alone could not achieve this objective. However, it failed to convince Bush’s administration to commit adequate levels of resources to state-building projects in either Afghanistan or Iraq. This neglect may have important repercussions for the ‘war against terrorism’. In addition, a further tension existed between Labour’s claim that it was a champion of democracy within states and its privileged position towards the top end of a highly undemocratic world order. A fourth contradiction was that while Blair’s government claimed to be promoting peace it continued to supply various types of military equipment to highly unstable regions, perhaps most notably in south Asia but also in the Middle East and Africa. Although Blair’s government acknowledged that ready access to weaponry increased the likelihood and intensity of war, between 1997 and 2003 the UK was the world’s second largest exporter of military equipment behind the US.4 In addition, by using offset packages to encourage states such as South Africa, India and Pakistan, many of whose citizens live in absolute poverty, to purchase large amounts of arms, Blair’s government directly reduced the chances of achieving its development targets in such countries. Finally, while Blair’s government claimed to promote the rule of law in international society and supported important reforms to the international legal order in the Pinochet case and over the ICC, at times, it pursued foreign policies that were at best legally precarious and at worst clearly illegal. It was in the military dimensions of foreign policy where this tension was most apparent. Operations Allied Force, Desert Fox and Iraqi Freedom, for instance, were almost universally judged to be illegal. In addition, strong cases could be made that Labour’s extension of the Mutual Defence Agreement and support for Washington’s missile defence policies breached the UK’s obligations under the NPT. In these cases Blair’s Britain arguably deserved Mark Curtis’ tag of ‘outlaw state’. These contradictions should remind us that there is no simple or single answer to the question, what role does the UK play in world politics? Under Labour, the UK played multiple and often contradictory roles. None of them were set in stone. Instead, Blair’s government chose to live with its contradictions.

Notes

Introduction 1. For example, A Fresh Start for Britain: Labour’s Strategy for Britain in the Modern World (London: Labour Party, 1996) and Labour’s 1997 election manifesto, Because Britain Deserves Better. 2. Tony Blair, ‘The principles of a modern British foreign policy’, speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet, London, 10 Nov. 1997. 3. John Kampfner, Robin Cook (London: Phoenix, 1999), p. 129. 4. ‘Pivotal Britain’, Economist, 10 Jan. 2002. 5. See generally, Miles Kahler (ed.), Liberalization and Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). On the Conservative’s foreign policy see Malcolm Rifkind, ‘Revisiting the ethical foreign policy’ (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 22 April 2004). 6. For example, Richard Cornwell, ‘When high principles run headlong into hard reality’, Independent, 16 Sept. 1999 and Robin Harris, ‘Blair’s “ethical” foreign policy’, The National Interest, 63 (2001), pp. 25–36. 7. Cited in James Naughtie, The Accidental American (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), p. 62. 8. Brian Barder, ‘Britain: still looking for that role?’, Political Quarterly, 72: 3 (2001), pp. 366–74. 9. See Peter Mangold, Success and Failure in British Foreign Policy: Evaluating the Record, 1900–2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001). 10. For example, Tim Dunne, ‘ “When the shooting starts”: Atlanticism in British security strategy’, International Affairs, 80: 5 (2004), pp. 893–909. 11. The main exceptions were Nicholas J. Wheeler and Tim Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy’, International Affairs, 74: 4 (1998), pp. 847–70 and to a lesser extent Mervyn Frost, ‘Putting the world to rights: Britain’s ethical foreign policy’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 12: 2 (1999), pp. 80–9. 12. Steve Smith, ‘Foreign policy analysis and the study of British foreign policy’, in Lawrence Freedman and Michael Clarke (eds), Britain in the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 66. 13. See Mark Curtis, The Great Deception: Anglo-American Power and World Order (London: Pluto Press, 1998); The Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World (London: Vintage, 2003); ‘Britain’s real foreign policy and the failure of British academia’, International Relations, 18: 3 (2004), pp. 275–87. Variations on this perspective include Eric Herring, ‘Response to Mervyn Frost: the systematic violation of ethical norms in British foreign policy’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 12: 2 (1999), pp. 90–2; and John Pilger, Hidden Agendas (London: Vintage, 1999), esp. pp. 1–152 and The New Rulers of the World (London: Verso, 2002). 14. Curtis, The Web of Deceit, pp. 1, 5, 7–8, 432. 213

214 Notes 15. Walter Carlsnaes, ‘Foreign policy’ in Walter Carlsnaes Thomas Risse, Beth A. Simmons (eds), Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage, 2002), p. 335. 16. Christopher Hill, The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy (London: Palgrave, 2003), p. 3. 17. Colin Hay, Political Analysis (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 251–60. 18. Carlsnaes, ‘Foreign Policy’, p. 334. 19. See Hay, Political Analysis, ch. 3. 20. Whether these choices are limited to deciding whether to exercise the ‘suicide option’ or, less dramatically, refusing to accept the most ‘realistic’ position will depend upon the strategic context in question. Hill, The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy, p. 20. 21. An international society ‘exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive of themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with each other, and share in the workings of common institutions’. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977), p. 13. ‘World society’ is primarily intended to capture the non-state dimensions of global politics. It can be understood as a domain involving three types of actors (states, transnational actors and individuals) where no single type is dominant over the other two. Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. xviii and 118–19. 22. Hay, Political Analysis, p. 256. 23. This stands in stark contrast to Mark Curtis who has consistently chastised academics for being ‘usually more deeply indoctrinated than “ordinary people” ’ and for taking the statements of policy-makers seriously. In his view, ‘the assertion that British foreign policy is motivated by concerns to promote human rights, democracy and other virtues is simply nonsense and an act of faith, or self-delusion’. Mark Curtis, Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses (London: Vintage, 2004), p. 320 and ‘Britain’s real foreign policy’, p. 285. Whereas Curtis professes to know the ‘real’ motives driving UK officials my own position is that foreign policies result from a mixture of (often contradictory) motives. 24. See Max Horkheimer, ‘Traditional and critical theory’ in Critical Theory: Selected Essays, translated by Matthew J. O’Connell and others (New York: Seabury Press, 1972), pp. 188–252. 25. Tony Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world around us’, speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, 2 Oct. 2001.

1

Understanding Labour’s Foreign Policy

1. Robin Cook, ‘British Foreign Policy’, FCO, 12 May 1997. 2. Except with regard to Europe and arms exports, Cook’s mission statement varied little from Malcolm Rifkind’s published in March. See, ‘Cook’s tour’, Economist, 15 May 1997. 3. Ken Booth, ‘Exporting ethics in place of arms’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 7 Nov. 1997.

Notes 215 4. For example, A Fresh Start for Britain: Labour’s Strategy for Britain in the Modern World (London: Labour Party, 1996). 5. Richard Little, ‘Conclusions’, in Richard Little and Mark Wickham-Jones (eds), New Labour’s Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 251. 6. Sally Morphet, ‘British foreign policy and human rights’, in David Forsythe (ed.), Human Rights and Comparative Foreign Policy (Tokyo: UN University Press, 2000), p. 97. 7. See ibid., pp. 91–6. 8. See Mark Wickham-Jones, ‘Labour party politics and foreign policy’, in Little and Wickham-Jones (eds), New Labour’s Foreign Policy, pp. 101–5. 9. John Kampfner, Robin Cook (London: Phoenix, 1999), p. 104. 10. Ibid., p. 223. 11. Wickham-Jones, ‘Labour party politics’, p. 107. 12. John Coles, Making Foreign Policy (London: John Murray, 2000), p. 191. Apparently Cook had three lengthy meetings with Coles prior to becoming Foreign Secretary. John Dickie, The New Mandarins (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), p. 85. 13. Little, ‘Conclusions’, p. 254. 14. Cited in Vickram Dodd and Ewan MacAskill, ‘Ethical policy ran into armoured attack’, Guardian, 4 Sept. 2000. 15. Vickram Dodd and Ewan MacAskill, ‘Labour drops ethical tag’, Guardian, 4 Sept. 2000. 16. Robin Harris, ‘Blair’s “ethical” foreign policy’, The National Interest, 63 (2001), pp. 25–36. 17. UK officials, especially Blair’s former adviser, Robert Cooper, also played important roles in shaping the EU’s post-9/11 reflections upon its own foreign and security policy. The resulting European Security Strategy: A Secure Europe in a Better World (Brussels: Dec. 2003) shared many elements with the UK International Priorities document. 18. Geoff Hoon, ‘This fight will be long and hard’, speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, 2 Oct. 2001. 19. The Strategic Defence Review: A New Chapter (London: Cm 5566 Vol. I) and Supporting Information and Analysis (London: Cm 5566 Vol. II, July 2002). 20. SDR: A New Chapter, para. 11. 21. See Martin Walker, ‘Mind the Gap’, World Today, 60: 1 (2004), pp. 11–12. 22. See Tim Dunne, ‘“When the shooting starts”: Atlanticism in British security strategy’, International Affairs, 80: 5 (2004), pp. 893–909. 23. Rhiannon Vickers, The Labour Party and the World: Volume 1 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 5–9. 24. Tony Blair, ‘The global threat of terrorism’, speech, Sedgefield, 5 March 2004. For an overview of this ‘sovereignty as responsibility approach’ see the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Council, 2001). 25. Liberal market democracies are states with both a liberal democratic polity and a market-oriented economy. This form of government has been extensively (and persuasively) critiqued under a variety of labels including ‘low intensity democracy’ and ‘polyarchy’. See Barry K. Gills and Joel Rocamora (eds),

216 Notes

26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

Low Intensity Democracy (London: Pluto, 1993); William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Roland Paris, At War’s End (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). See Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History’, The National Interest, 16 (1989) pp. 3–15. See Rita Abrahamsen and Paul Williams, ‘Ethics and foreign policy: the antinomies of New Labour’s “Third Way” in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Political Studies, 49: 2 (2001) pp. 249–64; Rita Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy (London: Zed Books, 2000). Robert Cooper, ‘Why we still need empires’, Observer, 7 Apr. 2002. For more detail see Cooper’s The Breaking of Nations (London: Atlantic Books, 2003). Blair, ‘The global threat of terrorism’. See Tony Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world’, speech to the Labour party Conference, Brighton, 2 Oct. 2001; Robin Cook, ‘Guiding humanitarian intervention’, speech to the American Bar Association, London, 19 July 2000. For an example of the critical view see David Coates and Joel Krieger, Blair’s war (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), pp. 97–112. See ibid., pp. 103. See especially, Tony Blair, ‘Doctrine of the international community’, speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, 22 April 1999. Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world’. See Robert Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), pp. 11–19; Barry Buzan, ‘Interdependence and Britain’s external relations’, in Lawrence Freedman and Michael Clarke (eds), Britain in the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 14–25. See Colin Hay and Matthew Watson, ‘Diminishing expectations: the strategic discourse of globalization in the political economy of New Labour’, in Alan W. Cafruny and Magnus Ryner (eds), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe (Lanham, US: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), pp. 147–72. See Buzan, ‘Interdependence’, p. 41 and, for example, Michael Jay, head of the diplomatic service, ‘Foreign policy affects us all’, speech to the Multicultural Business Dinner, Bolton, 19 May 2004. See, for example, UK Government, The Causes of Conflict in Africa (London: DFID, FCO, MOD, Consultation Document, 2001). See, for example, Richard Falk, Predatory Globalisation (Cambridge: Polity, 1999); James Mittleman (ed.), Globalization: Critical Reflections (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997). Blair, ‘Doctrine of the international community’. George Robertson, ‘Introduction’ to The Strategic Defence Review: Supporting Essays (London: TSO/MOD, 1998), p. 2. Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world.’ By multilateralism I mean an institutional form that coordinates relations among three or more independent actors, usually but not exclusively states, on the basis of shared principles of conduct. This is a reworked version of the definition in John Ruggie, ‘Multilateralism: the anatomy of an institution’, in John Ruggie (ed.), Multilateralism Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 11.

Notes 217 44. See, for example, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, ‘Effective multilateralism to build a better world’, joint statement, 20 Nov. 2003. See also Jack Straw, ‘Foreword’, in FCO, Departmental Report 2004 (Cm 6213, April 2004), p. 5. Elsewhere, Labour’s multilateralism has been labelled ‘offensive’ rather than ‘effective’ (by Coates and Krieger, Blair’s War, pp. 105–10) and à la carte (by Dunne, ‘When the shooting starts’, p. 903). 45. FCO, UK International Priorities: A Strategy for the FCO (London: CM 6052, Dec. 2003), p. 26. 46. See Tony Blair, ‘The principles of a modern British foreign policy’, speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet, London, 10 Nov. 1997. 47. Tony Blair, statement, BBC Radio News, 11 Sept. 2001. 48. Jane M. O. Sharp, ‘Tony Blair, Iraq and the special relationship’, International Journal, 59: 1 (2003–04), p. 86. 49. Chris Brown, ‘Do great powers have great responsibilities? Great powers and moral agency’, Global Society, 18: 1 (2004), p. 19. 50. See, for example, Tony Blair, The Third Way: New Politics for a New Century (London: Fabian Society Pamphlet 588, 1998). 51. See Colin Hay, The Political Economy of New Labour (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999); John Gray, ‘Blair’s project in retrospect’, International Affairs, 80: 1 (2004), pp. 39–48. 52. See Neil Williams, ‘Modernising government: policy-making within Whitehall’, Political Quarterly, 70: 4 (1999), pp. 452–9. 53. See, for example, Coles, Making Foreign Policy; William Hopkinson, The Making of British Defence Policy (London: TSO, 2000). 54. Coles, Making Foreign Policy, pp. 132, 203, 205. 55. See Martin Ceadel, Thinking about Peace and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 42. 56. Supreme humanitarian emergencies are situations that ‘shock the moral conscience of mankind’ and where ‘the only hope of saving lives depends on outsiders coming to the rescue’. Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 34.

2

The Closest Ally

1. Tony Blair, ‘Britain in the world’ speech to the FCO conference, London, 7 Jan. 2003. 2. William Shawcross, Allies (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 51 and John Gray, ‘Blair’s project in retrospect’, International Affairs, 80: 1 (2004), p. 47. 3. For example, Mark Curtis, The Web of Deceit (London: Vintage, 2003) and The Great Deception: Anglo-American Power and World Order (London: Pluto Press, 1998). 4. For example, Peter Unwin, Hearts, Minds and Interests: Britain’s Place in the world (London: Profile Books, 1998), p. 203. For a defence of this position in relation to the war in Iraq see Shawcross, Allies. 5. Michael Cox, US Foreign Policy after the Cold War (London: Pinter/RIIA, 1995), p. 5. 6. Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003).

218 Notes 7. As Blair suggested in an interview with the Financial Times on 28 April 2003: ‘Some [for instance, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin] want a so-called multi-polar world where you have different centres of power … others believe, and this is my notion, that we need one polar power which encompasses a strategic partnership between Europe and America.’ 8. For details of the substantial economic ties between the US and the UK see Joseph P. Quinlan, Drifting Apart or Growing Together? The Primacy of the Transatlantic Economy (Washington DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2003). 9. Richard Hodder-Williams, ‘Reforging the “special relationship” ’, in Richard Little and Mark Wickham-Jones (eds), New Labour’s Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 249. 10. I discuss UK perspectives on NATO – what The Economist described as the hinge of the relationship – in Chapter 6. See ‘Keeping Friends’, Economist, 8 Feb. 2001. 11. Rodric Braithwaite, ‘End of the affair’, Prospect (May 2003): www.prospectmagazine.co.uk 12. Hodder-Williams, ‘Reforging the “special relationship” ’, pp. 235, 238, 240. 13. Alan P. Dobson, ‘Labour or Conservative: does it matter in Anglo-American relations?’, Journal of Contemporary History, 25: 4 (1990), p. 391. 14. Ibid., p. 404. 15. Anthony Seldon, Blair (London: Free Press, 2004), p. 369. 16. Triangulation was a tactic developed in the mid-1990s by Clinton’s adviser Dick Morris. It involved branding Clinton as superior to both parties in Congress. Gray, ‘Blair’s project’, pp. 42–3. 17. Tony Blair, The Third Way: New Politics for a New Century (London: Fabian Society Pamphlet 588, 1998). Hodder-Williams, ‘Reforging the “special relationship” ’, pp. 248–9. 18. On the acrimonious telephone call see Seldon, Blair, pp. 377, 402–3. 19. Christopher Meyer, UK Ambassador to US (1997–2003), interview with PBS Frontline, 18 March 2003. www.pbs.org 20. For example, Braithwaite, ‘End of the affair’. 21. James Naughtie, The Accidental American (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), p. 157. 22. Sir Stephen Lander, ‘International intelligence cooperation: an inside perspective’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17: 3 (2004), p. 487. 23. I draw here on Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation’, International Affairs, 80: 4 (2004), pp. 737–41. 24. Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2002–03 (London: TSO, Cm 5837, June 2003), p. 9. 25. See Charles Grant, ‘Intelligence test’, Prospect ( June 2000) www.prospectmagazine.co.uk 26. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction (London: TSO, HC 898, 2004). This issue has also been the subject of considerable debate within the US. See, for example, Select Committee on Intelligence, Report on the US Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (US Senate: S. Report 108–301, 7 July 2004), esp. ch. IX. 27. Michael Herman, ‘Intelligence and the Iraqi threat: British joint intelligence after Butler’, RUSI Journal, 149: 4 (2004), pp. 22–3.

Notes 219 28. Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy (London: John Murray, 2002), p. 294. 29. See Lawrence Freedman, ‘We must guard intelligence from corruption’, Financial Times, 15 July 2004. 30. Seldon, Blair, p. 377. 31. In November 1999, a poll conducted by The Economist suggested that 59 per cent of Britons considered America Britain’s most reliable ally in a crisis. Only 16 per cent paid Europe that compliment. ‘A power in the world’, Economist, 4 Nov. 1999. 32. Meyer, interview with PBS Frontline. 33. See, for instance, a variety of articles in The Guardian and New Statesmen. Since the build-up to the war in Iraq, opinion poll data consistently suggested that a majority of UK citizens (approximately 60 per cent, and 77 per cent of under 25s) developed a strong dislike for the Bush administration. See, for example, Alan Travis, ‘We like Americans, we don’t like Bush’, Guardian, 15 Oct. 2004. It was also reported that the Prime Minister’s Office was worried about the negative effect of being associated so closely with Bush’s policies. See John Kampfner, ‘Operation Bush Distance’, New Statesman, 30 Aug. 2004 and Naughtie, The Accidental American, p. 203. 34. Seldon, Blair, p. 485. 35. Cited in Philip Stevens, Tony Blair (London: Viking, 2004), p. xiv. 36. Tony Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world’, speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, 2 Oct. 2001 and ‘The opportunity society’, speech to Labour party conference, Brighton, 28 Sept. 2004. 37. Peter Riddell, Hug Them Close: Blair, Clinton Bush and the Special Relationship (London: Methuen, 2003), p. 151. 38. Hansard (Commons), 14 Sept. 2001, cols 605–6. 39. Ibid., col. 606. 40. For details of how this mindset developed in relation to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq see Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002); Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). 41. See especially Security Council resolutions 1368 (12 Sept. 2001) and 1373 (28 Sept. 2001). 42. A pre-emptive military action implies a last-minute self-defence reaction to a process already in motion. There is good reason to believe that the right of self-defence in international law encompasses pre-emptive action in the face of an imminent armed attack. See Michael Byers, ‘Terrorism, the use of force and international law after 11 September’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 51 (April 2002), pp. 401–14. The classic definition of self-defence in international law is the Caroline dispute. For details see Christopher Greenwood, ‘International law and the pre-emptive use of force: Afghanistan, Al-Qaida, and Iraq’, San Diego International Law Journal, 7 (2003), pp. 7–37. A preventive military action, in contrast, is an option taken to prevent a hypothetical future scenario from occurring. 43. See Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound. 44. On 12 September NATO had invoked Article V of the Washington Treaty, apparently at the UK’s suggestion. Christopher Hill, ‘Renationalizing or regrouping? EU foreign policy since 11 September 2001’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 42: 1 (2004), p. 145.

220 Notes 45. Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world.’ 46. Defeating International Terrorism: Campaign Objectives (released on MOD web-site, 16 Oct. 2001). 47. See ibid., points 4–6. 48. Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world’. 49. Elena Katselli and Sangeeta Shah, ‘September 11 and the UK Response’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 52 ( Jan. 2003), pp. 253–4. 50. When Clare Short criticised Blair for saying the UK was ‘at war’ with terrorism, it was reported that press stories were planted that her Cabinet colleagues were ‘furious’ with her. Seldon, Blair, p. 499. 51. Lawrence Freedman, ‘The coming war on terrorism’, Political Quarterly, 73: S1 (2002), p. 44. 52. UK Terrorism Act 2000, chapter 11, part 1.1. For the definition of ‘action’ see parts 1.2–1.5. 53. Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Third World War?’, Survival, 43: 4 (2001–02), p. 63. 54. For a relevant discussion see Tarak Barkawi, ‘On the pedagogy of “small wars” ’, International Affairs, 80: 1 (2004), pp. 19–37. 55. Freedman, ‘The coming war on terrorism’, p. 45. 56. See Michael Howard, ‘What’s in a name? How to fight terrorism’, Foreign Affairs, 81: 1 (2002), pp. 8–13. 57. William Maley, The Afghanistan Wars (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 262. 58. Originally, the operation was to have been called Infinite Justice. This title was dropped on the grounds that in Islam, only Allah could dispense infinite justice. 59. Seldon, Blair, pp. 501–3. 60. The relevant Security Council resolutions setting out these demands and imposing sanctions upon the Taliban regime to that end are 1214 (1998), 1267 (1999) and 1333 (1999). 61. See Curtis, The Web of Deceit, p. 67. 62. See Colin McInnes, ‘A different kind of war? September 11 and the United States’ Afghan War’, Review of International Studies, 29: 2 (2003), pp. 165–84. By the end of October, a majority of public opinion in the UK supported a pause in the bombings. See John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: Simon & Schuster, 2003), pp. 133–4. 63. Estimates for the number of civilians killed directly by the bombing vary considerably. Carl Conetta estimated the bombing killed between 1000 and 3000 civilians in Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher Rate of Civilian Bombing Casualties (Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Report 11, 24 Jan. 2002) at www.comw.org. Dr Mark Herold initially estimated some 3767 had been killed between October and mid-December but subsequently revised his figure down to between 2650 and 2970. The New York Times published a figure of ‘as many as 400 civilians’ at eleven sites, whereas the US-based NGO Global Exchange suggested ‘at least 824 Afghan civilians were killed between October 7 and January 2002’. Cited in Adam Roberts, ‘The laws of war’ in Audrey Cronin and James Ludes (eds), Attacking Terrorism (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), pp. 198, 216 note 33. The largest single incident involved the reported deaths of over 100 people after a wedding party was bombed in the village of Qalaye Niazi on 29 December. See Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, pp. 147–9. For a relevant discussion

Notes 221

64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74.

75. 76. 77.

78. 79.

80. 81. 82.

83.

see Nicholas J. Wheeler, ‘Dying for enduring freedom’, International Relations, 16: 2 (2002), pp. 205–25. Maley, The Afghanistan Wars, p. 265. The use of proxy United Front ground troops appears to have stemmed in large part from the desire to avoid US/coalition casualties. However, Pakistan’s refusal to allow coalition troops to use its territory as a staging post made the task of putting a substantial ground force inside Afghanistan more difficult. Most public estimates suggested that at the time, the US had approximately 50,000 troops in the region between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Cited in Seldon, Blair, p. 508. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 145. On 11 November 2001, Geoff Hoon took the rare step of publicly confirming that British special forces were fighting alongside US troops. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 129. The official summaries of these operations are at www.operations.mod.uk/ veritas/index.htm. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, pp. 141–2. The other possibilities were Chapter VII of the UN Charter, intervention by invitation and humanitarian intervention. See Byers, ‘Terrorism’. In an interview in the Daily Telegraph on 24 Oct. 2001, Blair suggested, ‘We are entitled to take action against him [bin Laden]. A UN Security Council resolution authorised that.’ Cited in Byers, ‘Terrorism’, 402 note 8. For views, which I find persuasive, that Resolution 1373 did not explicitly authorise the use of force see Byers, ‘Terrorism’, pp. 401–3; Christopher Greenwood, ‘International law and the “war against terrorism” ’, International Affairs, 78: 2 (2002), p. 309. UN S/2001/947, 7 Oct. 2001 cited in Greenwood, ‘International law’, pp. 310–11. Jack Straw had previously invoked the self-defence argument in Parliament. See Hansard (Commons), 4 Oct. 2001, col. 690. Byers, ‘Terrorism’, pp. 409–10. Greenwood, ‘International law’, pp. 311–12. This was reiterated by Hoon’s statement that ‘We may need to coerce regimes and states which harbour or support international terrorism, with the threat and, ultimately, the use of, military force in the event that diplomatic and other means fail.’ Cited in Byers, ‘Terrorism’, p. 411 note 53. Ibid., p. 414. Initially, controversy was also generated when a large but unverified number of Taliban and al-Qa’ida prisoners were killed at the Qala-e Jhangi Fort near Mazar-e Sharif between 25 November and 1 December. The Northern Alliance General, Rashid Dostum, in charge of the fort at the time was assisted by certain US and UK forces. See Roberts, ‘The laws of war’, p. 201. See White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Fact Sheet: Status of Detainees at Guantanamo, 7 Feb. 2002. Greenwood, ‘International law’, pp. 315–16. Amnesty International, Memorandum to the US Government on the rights of individuals in US custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay (AMR 51/053/2002, 15 April 2002). The first major legal battles within the UK over this issue concerned the case of Feroz Abbasi, a British national held at Guantanamo Bay. Katselli and Shah, ‘September 11’, pp. 250–5.

222 Notes 84. Hansard (Commons), 19 Dec. 2001, col. 306. 85. Turkey had been reluctant to assume the leadership role without prior agreement on what would happen after ISAF’s initial six-month mandate ended in June. It also wanted assistance to meet the cost of increasing its contingent by 1000 to approximately 1300 troops, requiring an extra $60 million per year. 86. By this stage, the total number of British personnel in Afghanistan was approximately 600. FAC, Foreign Policy Aspects of the War Against Terrorism (London: TSO, HC441-I, July 2004), pp. 72 and 78. 87. US General Tommy Franks, for instance, suggested that ISAF would merely ‘confuse the battlefield’. Cited in Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 146. There were also disagreements over the potential size of Afghanistan’s army. While the Afghan Defence Minister wanted an army of 250,000 troops US and UK officials suggested a force of 50–60 thousand would be more appropriate. International Crisis Group (ICG), Securing Afghanistan (Brussels: Afghanistan Briefing, 2002), p. 7. 88. See Michael Smith and Andy McSmith, ‘Blair’s Afghan peace-keeping plan falling apart’, Telegraph, 18 Dec. 2001; Peter Foster and Michael Smith, ‘Britain’s troops to be left with only token role’, Telegraph, 20 Dec. 2001. 89. Geoff Hoon, Hansard (Commons), 20 June 2002, col. 408. By 15 June 2004, UK, US and French forces had trained about 10,000 members of the Afghan National Army. FAC, Foreign Policy Aspects, p. 72. 90. For details on DDR see ibid., pp. 75–6. 91. Ibid., p. 71. According to the FCO, 95 per cent of heroin in the UK originates from Afghanistan. On the UK government’s ongoing efforts see Jack Straw, ‘The challenges ahead for Afghanistan’, speech to the IISS, London, 28 Oct. 2004. 92. Brian Groom, ‘MPs hold emergency debate on deployment’, Financial Times, 20 March 2002. 93. Not least from Hamid Karzai, the UN Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson and NGOs such as the International Crisis Group. 94. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 146. 95. By way of comparison, IFOR in Bosnia was given 50,000 troops to help provide security, create a national army, and preserve peace at the end of a four-year war. ISAF received less than one-tenth that many troops despite being tasked with similar activities in Afghanistan, a country shattered after 25 years of war and a major bombardment by the US Air Force. 96. Because ISAF was a UN authorised mission it was funded by the troop contributing states. This may have increased their reluctance to expand the operation. 97. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 151. 98. FAC, Foreign Policy Aspects, p. 68. 99. Ibid., p. 76.

3

Living in (and with) Europe

1. Anne Deighton, ‘European Union Policy’ in Anthony Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect (London: Little, Brown & Co., 2001), p. 325.

Notes 223 2. Despite the ‘D’ in ESDP, it did not involve serious consideration of the Union assuming a major role in the territorial defence of its member states. 3. Officially, the WEU also had a variety of defence and security roles to play based on the Petersburg tasks but in practice this had amounted to little. See Anne Deighton (ed.), Western European Union 1954–1997 (Oxford: EIRU, 1997). 4. Jolyon Howorth, ‘Britain, NATO and CESDP’, European Foreign Affairs Review, 5 (2000), p. 378. 5. See Anthony Forster and William Wallace, ‘The British Response’ in Robin Niblett and William Wallace (eds), Rethinking European Order (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 124–51; Anthony Forster, ‘Britain’ in Ian Manners and Richard G. Whitman (eds), The Foreign Policies of the EU Member States (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 48. 6. Indeed, the UK played an important mediation role between France and the US over the ESDI and Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs) concepts. Howorth, ‘Britain, NATO and CESDP’, p. 380. 7. Ibid., p. 381 footnote 18. 8. Tony Blair, ‘The principles of a modern British foreign policy’, speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet, London, 10 Nov. 1997. 9. See, for example, Gerhard Schröeder’s comments in Peter Riddell, Hug Them Close (London: Politico’s, 2003), p. 142. 10. Especially after 22 January 2003, when US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld suggested France and Germany’s position on the Iraq crisis represented ‘old Europe’. 11. Brian Barder, ‘Britain: still looking for that role?’, Political Quarterly, 72: 3 (2001), pp. 370–1. 12. See Ole Wæver, ‘The EU as a security actor’ in Morten Kelstrup and Michael C. Williams (eds), International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 250–94. 13. See Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 14. Jolyon Howorth, ‘Discourse, ideas and epistemic communities in European security and defence policy’, West European Politics, 27: 2 (2004), p. 221. These officials later became part of a wider international epistemic community. 15. This paragraph draws from Richard G. Whitman, Amsterdam’s Unfinished Business? The Blair Government’s Initiative and the Future of the Western European Union (Paris: WEU Institute for Security Studies, Occasional Paper 7, 1999), pp. 6–8. 16. See Howorth, ‘Britain, NATO and CESDP’, pp. 387–8; Howorth, ‘Discourse’, p. 225. 17. Deighton, ‘European Union Policy’, p. 321. The key passages of the declaration are: ‘The European Union needs to be in a position to play its full role on the international stage. … To this end, the Union must have the necessary capacity for autonomous action, backed by credible, military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises … acting in conformity with our respective obligations in NATO.’ Arguably the key phrase was ‘autonomous action’. 18. Howorth, ‘Britain, NATO and CESDP’, p. 377.

224 Notes 19. Whitman, Amsterdam, p. 9. For an alternative list of ten areas of Franco-British agreement see Jolyon Howorth, ‘Britain, France and the European defence initiative’, Survival, 42: 2 (2000), pp. 36–7. 20. See Howorth, ‘Britain, NATO and CESDP’, pp. 388–9, 393. 21. Howorth, ‘Discourse’, p. 228. 22. For instance, although generally supportive of the St Malo declaration, on 8 December at a press conference in NATO Headquarters, Madeleine Albright suggested the Europeans should avoid the three-‘Ds’: diminution of NATO, duplication of capabilities and effort, and discrimination against the six non-EU NATO members. The three-‘D’s’ to be avoided subsequently morphed in popular debate to decoupling, duplication and discrimination. During the Bush administration, anxious comments about ESDP were made by several prominent figures, including Donald Rumsfeld, William Cohen and Richard Perle. Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, on the other hand, were far more enthusiastic. ‘Keeping Friends’, Economist, 8 Feb. 2001. 23. Howorth, ‘Discourse’, p. 222. 24. Whitman, Amsterdam, p. 11; Deighton, ‘European Union Policy’, p. 323. 25. The crisis in Albania during 1997 reinforced similar conclusions. In this case, John Major’s government decided that engaging in military action so close to a general election was unwise. 26. Lawrence Freedman, ‘The influence of ideas on British defence policy’, Contemporary British History, 10: 2 (1996), p. 132. 27. Howorth, ‘Discourse’, p. 221. 28. Ibid., p. 221 and Howorth, ‘Britain, NATO and CESDP’, pp. 382–7. See also Whitman, Amsterdam, pp. 12–14. 29. Cited in Howorth, ‘Discourse’, p. 225. 30. Gen. Wesley Clark cited in Alex J. Bellamy, Kosovo and International Society (London: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 157–8. 31. Lawrence Freedman, ‘Defence’ in Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect, p. 296. 32. Cited in Bellamy, Kosovo, p. 149. 33. Ibid. 34. Tony Blair interview, ‘A New Generation Draws the Line’, Newsweek, 133: 16, 19 April 1999, p. 41. 35. Michael MccGwire, ‘Why did we bomb Belgrade?’, International Affairs, 76: 1 (2000), pp. 39–61. 36. See Will Bartlett, ‘Labour goes to war’, in Richard Little and Mark WickhamJones (eds), New Labour’s Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 140, 143. 37. See Tony Blair, ‘There can be no compromise in Kosovo’, The Times, 7 May 1999. 38. Cited in Michael Clarke, ‘British perceptions’ in Mary Buckley and Sally N. Cummings (eds), Kosovo: Perceptions of War and its Aftermath (London: Continuum, 2001), p. 82. Blair made a similar argument before the Rambouillet summit stating: ‘I will not ignore war and instability in Europe. … I do not want to see such atrocities [as occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina] committed again, and again and again.’ Tony Blair, ‘Our responsibilities do not end at the English Channel’, Independent on Sunday, 14 Feb. 1999. 39. Hansard (Commons), 26 April 1999, col. 30.

Notes 225 40. Tony Blair, ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, 22 April 1999. 41. Tony Blair, Hansard (Commons), 8 June 1999, col. 471. 42. The seven were Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, the Gambia, Gabon, Malaysia and Slovenia. 43. For an overview of the campaign see Defence Select Committee, Lessons of Kosovo: 14th Report, 1999–2000 (London: TSO, HC 347-I and HC 347-II, 2000). 44. Clarke, ‘British perceptions’, p. 82. 45. Philip Stevens, Tony Blair (London: Viking, 2004), pp. 154–5. 46. Clarke, ‘British perceptions’, p. 85. 47. Hansard (Commons), 23 March 1999, col. 170. 48. Bellamy, Kosovo, pp. 158–9. 49. The following draws on Rhiannon Vickers, ‘Blair’s Kosovo campaign’, Civil Wars, 3: 1 (2000), pp. 63–6. 50. For details of parliamentary debate concerning Kosovo see Dan Keohane, ‘The debate on British policy in the Kosovo conflict’, Contemporary Security Policy, 21: 3 (2000), pp. 78–94. 51. Hansard (Commons), 18 May 1999, col. 923. 52. Hansard (Commons), 25 March 1999, cols 616–17. See also Sir Jeremy Greenstock’s comments in S/PV.3988, 24 March 1999, pp. 11–12. The legal reasoning had been set out in an FCO paper circulated to NATO capitals in October 1998. This suggested: ‘A UNSCR would give a clear base for NATO action, as well as being politically desirable. … But force can also be justified on the grounds of overwhelming humanitarian necessity without a UNSCR. The following criteria would need to be applied: (a) that there is convincing evidence, generally accepted by the international community as a whole, of extreme humanitarian distress on a large scale, requiring immediate and urgent relief. (b) That it is objectively clear that there is no practicable alternative to the use of force if lives are to be saved. (c) That the proposed use of force is necessary and proportionate to the aim (the relief of humanitarian need) and is strictly limited in time and scope to this aim.’ Cited in Adam Roberts, ‘NATO’s “Humanitarian War” over Kosovo’, Survival, 41: 3 (1999), p. 106. See also the special section ‘Kosovo crisis inquiry: international law aspects’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 49: 4 (Oct. 2000), pp. 876–943; N.D. White, ‘The legality of bombing in the name of humanity’, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 5: 1 (2000), pp. 27–43; Nicholas J. Wheeler, ‘Reflections on the legality and legitimacy of NATO’s intervention in Kosovo’, International Journal of Human Rights, 4: 3/4 (2000), pp. 145–63. 53. FAC, Fourth Report on Kosovo (London: TSO, HC: 28-I and 28-II, 2000), paras 134, 128, 138. For a discussion see Steven Wheatley, ‘The Foreign Affairs Select Committee report on Kosovo’, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 5: 2 (2000), pp. 261–73. 54. IICK, Kosovo Report (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 4.

226 Notes 55. At the end of the campaign NATO claimed to have destroyed some 120 Serbian tanks, 220 armoured personnel carriers and 450 artillery and mortar pieces. A later, suppressed US Air Force report put the figures at 14 tanks, 19 APCs and 20 artillery pieces. John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: Free Press, 2003), p. 58. 56. Cited in Stevens, Tony Blair, p. 164. 57. Western intelligence estimated that the war might create 200,000 more refugees. Within a month there were some 850,000 refugees and 200,000 IDPs. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 59. 58. Ken Booth, ‘The Kosovo tragedy: epilogue to another “low and dishonest decade” ’, Politikon, 27: 1 (2000), p. 8. 59. See, for example, Amnesty International, ‘Collateral Damage’ or Unlawful Killings? Violations of the Law of War by NATO During Operation Allied Force (EUR, 70/18/00, June 2000). 60. Stevens, Tony Blair, p. 161. 61. For the former charge see Bartlett, ‘Labour’, pp. 142–3 and Eric Herring, ‘From Rambouillet to Kosovo Accords’, International Journal of Human Rights, 4: 3/4 (2000), pp. 225–45; for a discussion of the latter see Simon Chesterman, You, The People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 76, 79–83, 132–4, 226–30. 62. See, for example, the polls taken on this issue by 28 March 1999 by Marplan, ICM International, the BBC’s Talking Point, and Mori-online, and those taken by 19 April by the Guardian, NOP, ICM and GMTV. 63. Roberts, ‘NATO’s humanitarian war’, pp. 117–18. 64. On 27 May, Robertson told his US counterpart, Bill Cohen, that the UK was ready to contribute 50,000 troops to a Kosovo campaign. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 48; Anthony Seldon, Blair (London: Free Press, 2004), pp. 396–403. 65. Freedman, ‘Defence’, p. 298. 66. Seldon, Blair, p. 405. 67. Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler, ‘Blair’s Britain: A force for good in the world?’, in Karen E. Smith and Margot Light (eds), Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 176–84. 68. Mark Curtis, The Web of Deceit (London: Vintage, 2003), pp. 135, 152–6. 69. Clarke, ‘British perceptions’, p. 78. 70. The joint EU/OSCE Representative, Felipe Gonzalez, struggled to make any diplomatic headway during 1998, largely because Milosevic consistently refused to see him. Bellamy, Kosovo, p. 135. 71. See Colin McInnes, ‘Fatal attraction? Air power and the West’, Contemporary Security Policy, 22: 3 (2001), pp. 28–51. 72. See Howorth, ‘Britain, NATO and CESDP’, pp. 386–7. 73. Figures from Bastian Giegerich and William Wallace, ‘Not such a soft power: the external deployment of European forces’, Survival, 46: 2 (2004), p. 174. For a critical discussion see Simon Duke, ‘CESDP: Nice’s overtrumped success?’, European Foreign Affairs Review, 6 (2001), pp. 155–75. 74. Christopher Hill, ‘Renationalizing or regrouping? EU foreign policy since 11 September 2001’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 42: 1 (2004), pp. 145–7, 160–1. 75. Officially inaugurated on 15 October 2003, by 2006 the NRF is supposed to be capable of deploying approximately 21,000 combat personnel with

Notes 227

76.

77. 78.

79.

80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

88. 89. 90. 91.

4

one-to-four weeks notice anywhere in the world and remain operational for up to three months. Its relationship to the EU’s RRF remains unclear. On 5 July 2002, at the Vilnius 10 summit in Riga, Blair stated ‘we in Britain favour as large an enlargement of NATO as possible’. Cited in Jolyon Howorth, ‘France, Britain and the Euro-Atlantic Crisis’, Survival, 45: 4 (2003–04), p. 180. Donald Rumsfeld, ‘A war like no other our nation has faced’, Guardian, 28 Sept. 2001. Jack Straw, ‘Failed and failing states’, speech at the European Research Institute, Birmingham, 6 Sept. 2002. The rationale is set out in Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations (London: Atlantic Books, 2003). Blair, Chirac and Schröeder held an informal meeting to discuss Afghanistan an hour before the Ghent Council on 20 October 2001 and planned a repeat meeting in London on 4 November. The prime ministers of Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands and the High Representative also attended the London session. ‘Guess who wasn’t coming to dinner?’, Economist, 8 Nov. 2001. Of course, seen in a ‘war on terrorism’ light, these meetings could also be interpreted as an attempt to present a more united front to Washington. See Anand Menon, ‘From crisis to catharsis: ESDP after Iraq’, International Affairs, 80: 4 (2004), p. 634. Menon, ‘From crisis’. Ibid., p. 645. Ibid., p. 648. After US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher dismissed the four states as ‘chocolate makers’. Ibid., p. 639. Thomas Fuller, ‘Summit talk of close European military ties upsets US’, International Herald Tribune, 17 Oct. 2003. Menon, ‘From crisis’, p. 643. Howorth, ‘France’, pp. 186, 188. See, for example, Donald Rumsfeld’s comments about withdrawing US troops from Bosnia, interview with the Washington Post, 17 May 2001. In mid-August 2004, the US announced it would be reducing its troop commitments in Europe and Asia by approximately 70,000–100,000, two-thirds of which would come from Europe. Mike Allen and Thomas E. Ricks, ‘US to cut forces in Europe, Asia’, Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2004. As of 1 October 2004, 56 UK Police Officers were part of EUPM as well as seven UK civilians employed in specialised areas. See Howorth, ‘France’, pp. 178–9. Christopher Hill, ‘Britain and the European Security Strategy’, CFSP Forum (Working Paper 6, 2004), pp. 2 and 7. Menon, ‘From crisis’, p. 644. The main drafter of the ESS in Solana’s office was Tony Blair’s former foreign policy adviser, Robert Cooper.

Healing a Scar on the World’s Conscience?

1. UK governments traditionally split Africa into two parts, with separate ministerial structures for dealing with North Africa and the Mahgreb, and Africa south of the Sahara. The UK’s Africa policy is thus usually taken as shorthand for policy towards sub-Saharan Africa. Within sub-Saharan Africa,

228 Notes

2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

UK aid, trade, investment and interests have been concentrated in Commonwealth Africa. Although Blair’s government started to look beyond Commonwealth Africa in several respects, those states remained the main focus of official attention. Speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, 2 Oct. 2001. See also Jack Straw, ‘Africa Matters’, Independent on Sunday, 3 Feb. 2002. Blair’s personal commitment to African issues was particularly important given that in 1998, his Foreign Secretary reportedly rejected a proposal that he visit Ghana and South Africa, saying that it was a waste of his time. ‘A far off country’, Economist, 14 May 1998. See John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: Free Press, 2003), pp. 65, 73. See Rita Abrahamsen, ‘Blair’s Africa: the politics of securitisation and fear’, Alternatives, 30 (2005), pp. 55–80. For more details see Christopher Clapham, Africa and the International System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). See Nicolas van de Walle, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). They were often cosmetic in the sense that several obviously authoritarian regimes (including Moi in Kenya, Dos Santos in Angola, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Bongo in Gabon, Mbasogo in Equatorial Guinea, and Masire in Botswana) remained in office despite adopting the trappings of multiparty democracies. See van de Walle, African Economies, pp. 216–17. Christopher Clapham, ‘Degrees of Statehood’, Review of International Studies, 24: 2 (1998), pp. 147–8. I draw here on van de Walle, African Economies, esp. pp. 115–29. Ibid., p. 51. The traditional hallmarks of statehood include: international recognition; a monopoly on legitimate force, an ability to control a designated territory, and at least a modicum of domestic legitimacy. Clapham, ‘Degrees’, p. 153. Ibid., p. 157. See Richard Dowden, ‘Blair throws a lifeline to Africa’, The Tablet (online), 16 Feb. 2002. See van de Walle, African Economies, esp. ch. 5. Christopher Clapham, ‘Discerning the new Africa’, International Affairs, 74: 2 (1998), pp. 265–6. Although Labour helped facilitate some high-profile mediation efforts in the DRC (mainly since 2002), it has committed only limited resources to the peace process and been quite content to let South Africa and Zambia bear the majority of the diplomatic burden. The UK government was also criticised for being too soft on Rwanda and Uganda over their interventions in the DRC and for underestimating the impact that resource exploitation on the course of the war and attempts to resolve it (see Chapter 7). See All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention, Cursed by Riches: Who Benefits from Resource Exploitation in the DRC? (Nov. 2002), p. 36. Comfort Ero, ‘A critical assessment of Britain’s Africa policy’, Conflict, Security and Development, 1: 2 (2001), pp. 60–61. Ibid., p. 65.

Notes 229 21. This was subsequently merged within the Africa Conflict Prevention Pool. 22. Alice Walpole, ‘British perspective on the P3 Initiative for enhancing African peacekeeping capability’, in Resolute Partners (Pretoria: ISS Monograph No. 21, Feb. 1998). 23. For some of the details see Eric G. Berman, ‘The provision of lethal military equipment’, Security Dialogue, 34: 2 (2003), pp. 208–13. 24. This was not unique to Africa. In Europe, for instance, UK peacekeepers were primarily involved in NATO not UN operations, and British troops deployed to the ISAF in Afghanistan served under a variety of non-UN command structures (in chronological order, the UK, Turkey, NetherlandsGermany and NATO). 25. See Randolph Martin, ‘Sudan’s perfect war’, Foreign Affairs, 81: 2 (2002), pp. 111–27. 26. This later became known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. 27. See International Development Committee, Darfur, Sudan: The responsibility to protect. Fifth Report 2004–05 (London: TSO, HC-67, March 2005). 28. In late July 2004, General Mike Jackson, the UK’s Chief of General Staff told the BBC that ‘If need be, we will be able to go to Sudan. I suspect we could put a brigade [approx. 5,000 troops] together very quickly indeed’. ‘Britain able to send 5,000 troops to Sudan’, Reuters, 24 July 2004. 29. See Peter Hain, ‘Angola needs our help’, speech to ACTSA, London, 20 Nov. 1999. 30. See Angola’s Future (London: British-Angola Forum/RIIA, 2004). 31. See FAC, Sierra Leone: Second Report 1998–99 (London: TSO, HC-116-I, 1999). 32. ‘Ethics man’, Economist, 14 May 1998. 33. Blair’s stance was reminiscent of the previous Conservative government’s policy of defeating the RUF through military means. To this end, in 1994 the Conservatives had supported a private military company employing 58 Gurkha soldiers in what turned out to be an unsuccessful campaign against the RUF. ‘A far-off country’, Economist, 14 May 1998. 34. ‘Military assistance to Sierra Leone’, MOD press release 270/00, 10 Oct. 2000. 35. ‘Flawed evidence led to “mission creep” ’, Guardian, 16 May 2000. 36. See Paul Williams, ‘Fighting for Freetown: British military intervention in Sierra Leone’, Contemporary Security Policy, 22: 3 (2001), pp. 140–68. 37. See ‘Four die in first clash with British’, Guardian, 18 May 2000. Although four dead rebels was the official total, the real death toll was considerably higher. See Damien Lewis, Operation Certain Death (London: Century, 2004). 38. For details see Richard Connaughton, ‘Operation “Barrass” ’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 12: 2 (2001), pp. 110–19; Lewis, Operation Certain Death. 39. ‘A region in flames’, Economist, 5 July 2003. 40. See Sierra Leone: One Year After Lome (London: CDD Strategy Planning Series No. 5, 15 Sept. 2000). 41. See Peter Penfold, ‘Will justice help peace?’, The World Today, 58: 11 (2002), pp. 21–3. 42. I owe this insight to Michael Kargbo. 43. Robin Cook, ‘Conflict prevention in the modern world’ speech to the 54th Session of the UN General Assembly, New York, 21 Sept. 1999. 44. The Africa Pool’s operation has now been extended to at least 2004–05 and its budget increased to £60 million.

230 Notes 45. Greg Austin, Evaluation of the Conflict Prevention Pools (DFID Report EVSUM EV647, 2004). 46. UK Exports to Africa (London: CAAT Briefing, Feb. 2002). 47. Fanning the Flames (London: CAAT, Jan. 2003), pp. 3–4. 48. In December 1999, and in the absence of credible military threats, the African National Congress (ANC) Government entered into five major arms purchase transactions with foreign suppliers now expected to cost R66.7 billion (approximately £5 billion). This deal, the ‘new’ South Africa’s largest ever public expenditure programme, included 9 Swedish/British advanced light Gripen fighter aircraft (with an option to acquire 19 more in 2004); and 12 BAE Hawk fighter trainer aircraft (with an option to purchase 12 more in 2002). Local media suggested the decision to select the BAE Hawks, over the newer, lighter and cheaper (reportedly half the price) Italian-designed Aeromacchi, was closely related to personal links between former Minister of Defence, the late Joe Modise and BAE, numerous BAE-sponsored overseas trips for Cabinet Ministers, MP’s and government officials, and BAE’s R5 million donation to the ANC’s MK Veterans Military Association. It should be noted that this equipment is almost all unsuited for use in peace operations. 49. ‘The British Connection’, Africa Confidential, 25 Oct. 2002, p. 3. 50. Daily Mail, 30 May 2000. 51. See Rita Abrahamsen and Paul Williams, ‘Ethics and foreign policy: The antinomies of New Labour’s “Third Way” in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Political Studies, 49: 2 (2001), pp. 254–8. 52. Tony Blair, ‘Facing the modern challenge: the third way in Britain and South Africa’, speech, Parliament Building, Cape Town, South Africa, 8 Jan. 1999. 53. Internationally, development aid to Africa has declined since its peak in 1992–93. See van de Walle, African Economies, ch. 5. 54. Figures from International Statistics on Development 2003. 55. The 16 are: DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 56. ‘Short change’, Economist, 31 Oct. 2002. 57. Ibid. 58. Richard Dowden, ‘Clare Short’, Prospect (May, 2002), p. 44. 59. Figures obtained from DFID’s web-site: www.dfid.gov.uk. Accessed Jan. 2004. 60. See ‘Short change’, Economist, 31 Oct. 2002. 61. See Mandela’s remarks at the Commonwealth Summit, Edinburgh, 24–27 Oct. 1997. 62. UNCTAD, Foreign Direct Investment in Africa: Performance and Potential (Geneva, June 1999). 63. See www.bp.com. Accessed May 2003. 64. Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda. 65. Jubilee Research, Real Progress Report on HIPC (New Economics Foundation, Sept. 2003). 66. Nick Davies, ‘Africa aid game is all snakes and adders’, Guardian, 17 June 1999. 67. Charlotte Denny, ‘Hypocrisy that underlies HIPC’, Guardian, 6 Jan. 2003. 68. Gordon Brown, ‘The Challenges of 2005: forging a new compact for Africa’, New Economy, 11: 3 (2004), p. 128.

Notes 231 69. Robin Cook, ‘Promoting peace and prosperity in Africa’, speech to the UN Security Council, New York, 24 Sept. 1998. 70. Rita Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa (London: Zed Books, 2000). 71. See Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Oxford: James Currey, 1999), Part 1. 72. Richard Dowden, ‘What’s wrong with Africa’, The Tablet (online), 16 Jan. 1999. 73. For more detail see Abrahamsen and Williams, ‘Ethics and foreign policy’, pp. 258–60. 74. See Ian Taylor and Paul Williams ‘The Limits of Engagement: British Foreign Policy and the Crisis in Zimbabwe’, International Affairs, 78: 3 (2002), pp. 547–65. 75. FCO, Human Rights Annual Report 2003 (London: TSO, Cm 5967, 2003), p. 52. 76. Christopher Hill, ‘Foreign Policy’ in Anthony Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect (London: Little, Brown, 2001), p. 347. 77. Dowden, ‘Blair’. 78. Ero, ‘A critical assessment’, p. 64. 79. The four states were Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Senegal. 80. Dowden, ‘Blair’. 81. Clare Short, ‘Can Africa halve poverty by 2015? The challenge to the new partnership for African development’, speech Johannesburg, South Africa, 4 April 2002. 82. See Ian Taylor, NEPAD: Towards Africa’s development or another false start? (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005). 83. For example, see Short, ‘Can Africa’ and ‘Why I take heart’, The Tablet (online), 6 Sept. 1997. 84. Gordon Brown, ‘We have much more to do’ speech to Labour party conference, Brighton, 27 Sept. 2004. 85. UNDP, Human Development Report 2003 (Oxford: UNDP/Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 2. 86. ‘Africa: the next step is action’, Guardian, 12 March 2005, ‘Let them eat words’, Financial Times, 12–13 March 2005. 87. Christopher Clapham, ‘Introduction’, International Affairs, 81: 2 (2005), p. 277. 88. Patrick Wintour, ‘We’ve got the script, now let’s make the film’, Guardian, 12 March 2005.

5

Navigating in the Global Economy

1. For a particularly strong defence of such policies see Tony Blair’s speech to the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, 24 July 2003. 2. ‘Let us reorder this world around us’, speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, 2 Oct. 2001. 3. Mark Curtis, The Web of Deceit (London: Vintage, 2003), pp. 207–32. 4. See Blair’s speech to the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, 24 July 2003. 5. For example, Colin Hay, The political economy of New Labour (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999); John Gray, ‘Blair’s project in retrospect’, International Affairs, 80: 1 (2004), pp. 39–48; Susan Watkins, ‘A Weightless Hegemony’, New Left Review, 25 ( Jan.–Feb. 2004), pp. 5–33. For Rorden

232 Notes

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

23.

Wilkinson, Labour’s concern for development and environmental issues represented socialised neoliberalism. However, Wilkinson notes that ‘the further liberalisation of trade and investment flows are invariably presented as the key prior concern, with global social, developmental and environmental responsibility acting as subordinate if useful (electoral and popular) additions to the overall package.’ Rorden Wilkinson, ‘New Labour and the global economy’, in David Coates and Peter Lawler (eds), New Labour in power (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 138–9. Interestingly, as John Gray has pointed out, ‘There is a certain symbolism in the fact that the prefix ‘New’ was formally dropped from Labour Party membership cards in December 2003.’ ‘Blair’s Project’, p. 48. Ibid., p. 42. Gordon Brown, ‘We have much more to do’ speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, 27 Sept. 2004. David Coates and Colin Hay, ‘The internal and external face of New Labour’s political economy’, Government and Opposition, 36: 4 (2001), p. 453. Philip Stevens, Tony Blair (London: Viking, 2004), p. 116. Hay, The Political Economy, pp. 28–31. See Susan George, ‘Winning the War of Ideas’, Dissent, 44: 3 (1997), pp. 47–53. Hay, The Political Economy, pp. 64, 164. For evidence against this determinist perspective see Colin Hay, ‘Contemporary capitalism, globalization, regionalization and the persistence of national variation’, Review of International Studies, 26: 4 (2000), pp. 509–31. See Matthew Watson and Colin Hay, ‘The discourse of globalisation and the logic of no alternative’, Policy & Politics, 31: 3 (2003), p. 302. Hay, The Political Economy, p. 135. Roger Tooze, ‘Conceptualizing the global economy’, in A. McGrew and Paul Lewis (eds), Global Politics (Cambridge: Polity, 1992), p. 235. Speech to the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, 24 July 2003. Tony Blair, statement to WTO Ministerial conference, Geneva, 19 May 1998. Blair had earlier defined championing international free trade as the fifth ‘guiding light’ principle of UK foreign policy. See his speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, London, 10 Nov. 1997. And, Tony Blair, speech to the British Chamber of Commerce dinner, Kempinski Hotel, Beijing, China, 7 Oct. 1998 cited in Matthew Watson, ‘Sand in the wheels, or oiling the wheels, of international finance? New Labour’s appeal to a “new Bretton Woods” ’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 4: 2 (2002), p. 197. See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (London: Beacon Press, 1957). The following paragraph draws on Watson and Hay, ‘The discourse of globalisation’. For an overview of the Labour party’s use of the term see Colin Hay, ‘The invocation of external economic constraint: A genealogy of the concept of globalization in the political economy of the British Labour party, 1973–2000’, The European Legacy, 6: 2 (2001), pp. 233–49. Stevens, Tony Blair, p. 68. Andrew Baker, ‘Nébuleuse and the “internationalization of the state” in the UK? The case of HM Treasury and the Bank of England’, Review of International Political Economy, 6: 1 (1999), pp. 79–100. See Stephen Gill, ‘The new constitutionalism, democratisation and the global political economy’, Pacifica Review, 10: 1 (1998), pp. 23–38.

Notes 233 24. Colin Hay and Nicola J. Smith, ‘Horses for courses? The political discourse of globalisation and European integration in the UK and Ireland’, West European Politics, 28: 1 (2005), pp. 124–58. 25. See, for example, DFID, Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor (London: Cm 5006, 2000), p. 29. 26. Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world around us’. 27. See, for example, Tony Blair, ‘The global threat of terrorism’, speech Sedgefield, 5 Mar. 2004. For Blair, the threat of global terrorism ‘is to the world’s security, what globalization is to the world’s economy’. 28. Will Hutton, ‘Britain in a Cold Climate: The economic aims of foreign policy in the 1990s’, International Affairs, 68: 4 (1992), pp. 619–32. 29. David Currie and David Vines, ‘A global economic policy agenda for the 1990s: Is there a special British role?’, International Affairs, 68: 4 (1992), p. 600. 30. Ibid., p. 586. 31. Blair, ‘Let us reorder this world around us’. 32. Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, ‘Globalization in one country? The peculiarities of the British’, Economy and Society, 29: 3 (2000), pp. 335–56. 33. See Michael Clarke, British External Policy-making in the 1990s (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 44–52. 34. Hirst and Thompson, ‘Globalization’, p. 344. The implications of these policies for the planet’s poorest states and people are discussed in more detailed in Chapter 7. 35. Tony Blair, ‘Facing the modern challenge: the third way in Britain and South Africa’, speech, Cape Town, South Africa, 8 Jan. 1999. See also Tony Blair, The Third Way: New Politics for a New Century (London: Fabian Society Pamphlet 588, 1998). 36. Speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, 28 Sept. 2004. 37. For details see Anthony Giddens, The Third Way (Cambridge: Polity, 1998) and The Third Way and Its Critics (Cambridge: Polity, 2000); Ian Hargreaves and Ian Chrstie (eds), Tomorrow’s Politics (London: Demos, 1998). 38. See Nicholas J. Wheeler and Tim Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy’, International Affairs, 74: 4 (1998), pp. 847–70. 39. Joseph Stiglitz, ‘More instruments and broader goals: moving towards the post-Washington consensus,’ WIDER Annual Lecture, Helsinki, 7 Jan. 1998. 40. Wilkinson, ‘New Labour’, p. 140. 41. See, for example, DFID, Eliminating World Poverty, p. 69. 42. For details see Mark Hillyard, Multilateral Agreement on Investment (House of Commons Research Paper, 98/31, 4 Mar. 1998). 43. See Natalie Williams, Investment Regulation and State Authority – The Reasons for the Failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 2003). 44. Ibid., pp. 294–5. 45. According to Natalie Williams, during 1997 and 1998, only 29 articles on the MAI appeared in the UK press. These were predominantly in the Financial Times and Guardian rather than the tabloids and often provided little more than up-dates on the negotiations rather than analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the agreement. Ibid., p. 263. 46. Ibid., pp. 261–2.

234 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63.

64.

65.

66.

67. 68.

Notes See ibid., pp. 272–84 and Hillyard, Multilateral. See the debate in Hansard (Commons), 23 Jul. 1997, cols 865–84. Tony Blair, Hansard (Commons), 18 Feb. 1998, cols 1077–8. Williams, Investment Regulation, pp. 285–6 and 290. Wilkinson, ‘New Labour’, pp. 146–7. ‘Doctrine of the International Community’ speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, 22 Apr. 1999. My account draws heavily on Watson, ‘Sand in the wheels’. Ibid., p. 198. See, for instance, Blair’s speech to the World Economic Forum meeting, Davos, Switzerland, 18 Jan. 2000 and Gordon Brown’s lecture to the Royal Economic Society, St Andrews, 13 July 2000 cited in ibid., pp. 200–1. Ibid., p. 202. Ibid., p. 213. Ibid., p. 213. Donna Lee, ‘The Growing Influence of Business in UK Diplomacy’, International Studies Perspectives, 5: 1 (2004), p. 51. Blair’s government devoted significant – although notably declining – portions of the FCO’s annual budget to these activities. In 1997–98, the FCO spent 27 per cent of its resources overseas on commercial/inward investment activities (FCO Departmental Report 1999, p. 75). In 2000, 25 per cent was spent on the FCO’s Objective 2: Prosperity (FCO Departmental Report 2000, p. 16). This figure dropped to 19 per cent in 2001 (FCO Departmental Report 2001, p. 36). In 2002 the FCO devoted 13 per cent of its budget to BTI and a further 4 per cent on promoting UK prosperity (FCO Departmental Report 2002, p. 54). In 2003, the figure was 9 per cent on BTI and a further 4 per cent on prosperity (FCO Departmental Report 2003, p. 48). In 2004, the FCO allocated 10 per cent of its budget to UK Trade & Investment with a further 4 per cent going to promote UK prosperity (FCO Departmental Report 2004, p. 186). Lee, ‘The Growing Influence’. FCO Departmental Report 2004, p. 72. Lee cites the example of BNFL employee, Tom McLaughlin who was ‘accused of abusing his diplomatic status by presenting an exceptionally positive view of BNFL in embassy reports written in the name of the ambassador’ while he was on secondment in the UK mission in Tokyo. Lee, ‘The Growing Influence’, p. 54. A similar process, albeit on a much smaller scale was also evident in UK–Libya relations. See, for example, Mike O’Brien’s speech to the Libyan–British Business Council, London, 10 Jun. 2004. See the FCO’s submission to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Relations with the People’s Republic of China: Tenth Report, Session 1999–2000 (London: TSO, 2000). Short admitted she had ignored part of her brief to promote UK–China trade during one of her trips to China because she felt it clashed with her primary duty to provide aid. See ‘Blair: China is ripe for investment’, BBC Online, 8 Dec. 1998. Shaun Breslin, ‘Beyond Diplomacy? UK relations with China since 1997,’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6: 3 (2004), pp. 409–25. Cited in ibid., p. 421.

Notes 235 69. See, for example, Tony Blair’s speech to the CBBC conference, China, 8 Dec. 1998. 70. Breslin, ‘Beyond Diplomacy?’, pp. 420–1. 71. Under Labour, UK firms have consistently been the largest European investors in China. In 1998, these investments were worth over $12 billion and involved more than 2000 British joint ventures. Tony Blair, speech to the CBBC conference. Similarly, when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited the UK in Oct. 1999, commercials contracts worth over £2 billion were signed. Ibid., p. 418. 72. See ibid., p. 423. 73. For example, Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship’, p. 869. 74. Breslin, ‘Beyond Diplomacy?’, p. 418. 75. Rosemary Foot, Rights Beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 76. Ming Wan, Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Relations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), p. 72. 77. Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship’, p. 864.

6

Defending the Realm … and the Defence Industry

1. One of the few attempts to do so is Stuart Croft, Andrew Dorman, Wyn Rees, Mathew Uttley, Britain and Defence, 1945–2000 (Harlow: Longman, 2001). 2. Lawrence Freedman, ‘The influence of ideas on British defence policy’, Contemporary British History, 10: 2 (1996), p. 129. 3. Geoff Hoon, ‘Britain’s armed forces for tomorrow’s defence’, RUSI Journal, 148 (Aug. 2003), p. 34. 4. See Dan Keohane, Security in British Politics, 1945–99 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000). 5. See Philip Gummet, ‘New Labour and defence’, in David Coates and Peter Lawler (eds), New Labour in Power (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 269. 6. For instance, Labour Party, A Fresh Start for Britain (London: 1996) and Labour Party, Strategy for a Secure Future: Labour’s Approach to the Defence Industry (London: 1995). 7. Lawrence Freedman, ‘Defence’, in Anthony Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect (London: Little, Brown, 2001), p. 303. 8. In 2000, major reductions were made in UK troop commitments in Bosnia (2000 from 11,500), Kosovo (3500 from 10,500) and Northern Ireland (14,000 from 30,000), which freed up considerable resources. Freedman, ‘Defence’, p. 303. 9. For instance, William Hopkinson, The Making of British Defence Policy (London: TSO, 2000). 10. MOD, The Strategic Defence Review (London: Cm. 3999, 1998). 11. Stuart Croft, J. Howorth, T. Terriff and M. Webber, ‘NATO’s triple challenge’, International Affairs, 76: 3 (2000), pp. 495–518. 12. Guthrie was later to play an important role in allaying Blair’s early concerns about using force in Operation Desert Fox and stewarding the Kosovo campaign. John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: The Free Press, 2003), p. 23. See also Philip Stevens, Tony Blair (London: Viking, 2004), p. 121.

236 Notes 13. Stevens, Tony Blair, p. 120. 14. See Colin McInnes, ‘Labour’s Strategic Defence Review’, International Affairs, 74: 4 (1998), p. 829 and ‘Labour’s defence war’, Economist, 6 Nov. 1997. 15. MOD, The SDR, p. 8. 16. For example, Darren Lilleker, ‘Labour’s defence policy’, in Richard Little and Mark Wickham-Jones (eds), New Labour’s Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 230. 17. See Freedman, ‘Defence’, p. 292 and McInnes, ‘Labour’s SDR’, p. 830. For one thing, the SDR’s ‘expert panel’ contained no one who could be described as an ‘alternative thinker’ in the sense used by Stuart Croft, ‘Britain’s nuclear weapons discourse’ in Croft et al., Britain and Defence, p. 82. 18. The SDR’s projected spending plans for the subsequent three years actually left the defence budget £685 million worse off in real terms by 2001–02. McInnes, ‘Labour’s SDR’, p. 840 footnote 51. Even this decision had apparently involved Blair overruling Gordon Brown, who had wanted further cuts. Stevens, Tony Blair, p. 121. From the 2002 Spending Review, the defence budget has consistently increased, reaching just under £30 billion by 2004–05. 2004 Spending Review: New Public Spending Plans 2005–2008 (London: HM Treasury, Cm 6237, July 2004), p. 129. Chapter 13 of the 2004 Spending Review justified the increase in defence expenditure by referring to three aspects of the 2003 White Paper: the widening geographic scope of UK interests; the specific threat of international terrorism and WMD proliferation; and the promised benefits of delivering a Network-Enabled Capability into the military. 19. See Paul Rogers, ‘New ground, old assumptions’, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue 28 ( July 1998). 20. See Committee on Defence, The Strategic Defence Review: Eighth Report, 1997–98: Vol. 1 (London: TSO, HC 138-1, 1998), paras 416, 418, 427. 21. Geoff Hoon, ‘11 September – a new chapter for the Strategic Defence Review’, speech to Kings College London, 5 Dec. 2001. 22. Hoon, ‘Britain’s armed forces’, 39. 23. ‘Introduction’ to The SDR, p. 2. 24. Delivering Security in a Changing World: Supporting Essays (London: TSO, Defence White Paper, Cm 6041-II, Dec. 2003), p. 5. 25. For relevant evidence see Hew Strachan, ‘The British way in warfare’, in David Chandler and Ian Beckett (eds), The Oxford History of the British Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Rod Thornton, ‘A welcome revolution? The British Army and the changes of the SDR’, Defence Studies, 3: 3 (2003) and Rod Thornton, ‘The British Army and the origins of its minimum force philosophy’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 15: 1 (2004), pp. 83–106. 26. See, for example, Joint Warfare Publication 3–50: The Military Contribution to Peace Support Operations (Swindon: MOD, 2nd edition, June 2004). 27. See Colin McInnes, Spectator-Sport War: The West and Contemporary Conflict (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002) and Christopher Coker, Humane Warfare (London: Routledge, 2001). 28. Michael Walker, ‘Delivering security in a changing world’, RUSI Journal, 149 (Feb. 2004), pp. 38–9. 29. Paul Keetch, ‘The future of British defence: The Liberal Democrat view’, RUSI Journal, 147 (Aug. 2002), p. 26.

Notes 237 30. C4ISR stands for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. 31. Walker, ‘Delivering Security’, p. 39. 32. See ‘Keeping Friends’, Economist, 8 Feb. 2001; FCO, UK International Priorities, p. 26; Delivering Security, para. 2.18. 33. Stuart Croft, ‘The EU, NATO and Europeanisation’, European Security, 9: 3 (2000), pp. 1–20. 34. Delivering Security: Supporting Essays, para. 1.2. 35. Croft et al., ‘NATO’s triple challenge’. 36. Stuart Croft, ‘Guaranteeing Europe’s security? Enlarging NATO again’, International Affairs, 78: 1 (2002), p. 104. 37. Ibid., p. 111. 38. Croft et al., ‘NATO’s triple challenge’, pp. 506–7. 39. See Ivo H. Daalder, ‘The end of Atlanticism’, Survival, 45: 2 (2003), pp. 147–66. 40. The force is expected to reach its full capacity of 21,000 by October 2006. 41. Delivering Security: Supporting Essays, para. 1.4. 42. Over its 30 year operating cycle, Trident has cost approximately £1 billion a year (around 4–5 per cent of the defence total). Michael Clarke, ‘Does my bomb look big in this?’, International Affairs, 80: 1 (2004), p. 53. In addition, Thatcher’s government signed contracts with US and UK manufacturers that included significant punitive conditions. This meant that even if subsequent governments cancelled Trident for political reasons, the money would still be forfeited. Di McDonald, Siân Jones and Rebecca Johnson, ‘Why is Britain’s nuclear weapons infrastructure being upgraded?’, Disarmament Diplomacy, 76 (Mar–Apr. 2004). 43. See Delivering Security, p. 9. 44. Eric Grove, ‘Nuclear Implications Explained’, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue 28 (July 1998). Grove’s assessment has been challenged. However, his critics also acknowledge that Trident offered a ‘roughly comparable’ arsenal to Polaris not a significantly diminished one. See Malcolm Chalmers, ‘ “Bombs Away?” Britain and nuclear weapons under New Labour’, Security Dialogue, 30: 1 (1999), p. 65. 45. Michael Clarke, ‘How strategic was the review?’, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue 28 ( July 1998). 46. Defence Committee, A New Chapter of the SDR: Sixth Report of Session 2002–03: Vol. 1 (London: TSO, HC 93-I, May 2003), para 13. 47. Clarke, ‘Does my bomb’, p. 56. 48. Brian Barder, ‘Britain: still looking for that role?’, Political Quarterly, 72: 3 (2001), pp. 371–2. 49. Rebecca Johnson, ‘Still punching above our weight’, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue 28 (July 1998). 50. Cited in Robert Green, ‘The SDR and Britain’s nuclear disarmament obligations’, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue 28 (July 1998). 51. Cited in Michael Byers, War Law (London: Atlantic Books, 2005), p. 125. 52. Delivering Security, p. 9. 53. Nigel Chamberlain, Nicola Butler and Dave Andrews, US–UK Nuclear Weapons Collaboration under the Mutual Defence Agreement (BASIC Special Report 2004.3, 2004).

238 Notes 54. See the legal opinion of Rabinder Singh QC and Prof. Christine Chinkin, Matrix, 20 July 2004 at www.basicint.org/nuclear/MDAlegal.htm 55. In July 1999, President Clinton signed into law the National Missile Defence Act. This declared it was ‘the policy of the United States to deploy as soon as is technologically possible an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack (whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate)’. 56. See FAC, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Eighth Report, 1999–2000 (London: TSO, HC 407, 2000), paras 48 and 50. 57. Rumsfeld had played a key role in developing the National Intelligence Estimates in the late 1990s that argued the US faced an elevated potential threat from ballistic missiles. 58. ‘Joint Statement by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair’, 23 Feb. 2001 cited in Nicola Butler, ‘What price British influence? Tony Blair and the decision to back missile defence’, Disarmament Diplomacy, 72 (Aug–Sept 2003). See also Wyn Q. Bowen, ‘Missile defence and the transatlantic security relationship’, International Affairs, 77: 3 (2001), pp. 502, 506. 59. Butler, ‘What price British influence?’ 60. Denmark was also asked to upgrade some of its relevant facilities. 61. Ministry of Defence updates Parliament on Missile Defence, MOD Press Notice, 15 Jan. 2003 cited in Butler, ‘What price British influence?’ 62. Ibid. 63. It also signed a classified memorandum of understanding with the US government on missile defence. 64. Defence Committee, Missile Defence: First Report, 2002–03 (London: TSO, HC290-I, 2003), Summary and Jean Eaglesham, ‘Labour MPs lash Hoon over missile defence’, Financial Times, 30 Jan. 2003. 65. Defence Committee, Missile Defence, Summary. 66. Butler, ‘What price British influence?’ 67. Jean Eaglesham, ‘Hoon backs US “son of star wars” programme’, Financial Times, 13 Nov. 2002. 68. See also, ‘Transformed? A survey of the defence industry’, Economist, 20 July 2002, pp. 4–6. 69. Laurence Lustgarten, ‘Constitutional discipline and the arms trade’, Political Quarterly, 69: 4 (1998), p. 427. 70. Mark Phythian, The Politics of British Arms Sales Since 1964 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 317. 71. Mark Curtis, The Web of Deceit (London: Vintage, 2003), pp. 186–206. 72. Labour Party, Strategy for a Secure Future, p. 20. 73. John Kampfner, Robin Cook (London: Phoenix, 1999), pp. 145–6. 74. Hansard (Commons), 28 July 1997, cols. 26–9w. 75. See Phythian, The Politics of British Arms Sales, pp. 294–8. 76. Ibid., p. 299. 77. Ibid., p. 303. 78. Neil Cooper, ‘The pariah agenda and New Labour’s ethical arms sales policy’, in Little and Wickham-Jones (eds), New Labour’s Foreign Policy, pp. 152–3. 79. Phythian, The Politics of British Arms Sales, pp. 299–300. 80. Cited in ibid., p. 300. 81. Robin Cook cited in ibid., p. 293.

Notes 239 82. See Joanna Spear, ‘Foreign and defence policy’, in Patrick Dunleavy, Andrew Gamble, Ian Holiday and Gillian Peele (eds), Developments in British Politics 6 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), p. 281; ‘Cook’s lumpy foreign broth’, Economist, 29 Jan. 1998. 83. Cooper, ‘The pariah agenda’. 84. When Labour arrived in office, the government claimed that of the 420,000 jobs in the defence field, some 155,000 were sustained by exports (75,000 directly and 80,000 indirectly). Phythian, The Politics of British Arms Sales, p. 30. 85. When Labour took office one group of analysts suggested the subsidies to the arms industry were in excess of £1 billion per year. See ibid., pp. 31–2. By 2003, government subsidies were said to total at least £453 m and possibly up to £936 m. The lower figure is calculated from the annual budgets of Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) (£14 m), defence attaches (£6 m), use of the armed forces for export promotion (£6 m) and the Defence Assistance Fund (£5 m), £31 m of direct assistance, £222 m of export credits, and £200 m in MOD procurement distortion. The higher figure is obtained by adding up to £483 m for government support for the development of systems through Research and Development. This amounts to subsidies of between £7000 and £14,000 for each job supported by exports. Paul Ingram and Roy Isbister, Escaping the Subsidy Trap: Why Arms Exports are Bad for Britain (London: BASIC/Saferworld/Oxford Research Group, 2004), p. 25. See also, Malcolm Chalmers, N.V. Davies, K. Hartley and C. Wilkinson, ‘The economic costs and benefits of UK defence exports’, Fiscal Studies, 23: 3 (2003), pp. 343–67. 86. Ingram and Isbister, Escaping the Subsidy Trap, p. 9. 87. Phythian, The Politics of British Arms Sales, p. 323. 88. David Mepham and Paul Eavis, The Missing Link in Labour’s Foreign Policy (London: IPPR, Nov. 2002). 89. For instance, Robin Cook, Hansard (Commons), 28 July 1997, col. 26w. 90. Phythian, The Politics of British Arms Sales, p. 323. 91. Initially, Blair’s government was more sympathetic than its predecessors to the idea of establishing a European defence industry. However, the idea of ‘Euroco’ was dashed by BAE’s refusal to merge with the German firm Dasa (the Daimler Chrysler aerospace division). BAE opted instead to acquire UK firm Marconi Electronic Systems. Spear, ‘Foreign and defence policy’, p. 279. 92. McInnes, ‘Labour’s SDR’, pp. 843–4. 93. Mark Odell and Jean Eaglesham, ‘Big defence projects “late or over budget” ’, Financial Times, 4 Dec. 2002 and ‘MOD accused of fiddling targets to hide project overruns’, Financial Times, 7–8 Dec. 2002. 94. Cooper, ‘The pariah agenda’. 95. ‘Transformed?’, Economist, p. 6. 96. My account draws from Ingram and Isbister, Escaping the Subsidy Trap, pp. 20–3; Edna Fernandes, ‘Straw lobbies Delhi over £1bn Hawk jet deal’, Financial Times, 28 Feb. 2002; Brian Groom and Alexander Nicoll, ‘DTI softens line on arms export licenses’, Financial Times, 28 May 2002; James Mackintosh, ‘Crisis is the most serious in world, says Straw’, Financial Times, 28 May 2002; Curtis, The Web of Deceit, pp. 189–90. 97. James Naughtie, The Accidental American (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), p. 195.

240 Notes 98. 99. 100. 101.

7

Ingram and Isbister, Escaping the Subsidy Trap, p. 23. Mepham and Eavis, The Missing Link. Anthony Sampson, The Arms Bazaar (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977). Cooper, ‘The pariah agenda’, p. 163.

The Right (and Prudent) Thing to Do

1. Labour Party, A Fresh Start for Britain (London: 1996), pp. 1–2. 2. DFID, Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century (London: Cm 3789, Nov. 1997), p. 5. 3. DFID, Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor (London: Cm 5006, Dec. 2000), p. 6. 4. UNDP, Human Development Report 2002 and 2003 (Oxford: UNDP/Oxford University Press, 2002, 2003). 5. UNDP, Human Development Report 2003, p. 2. Emphasis added. 6. Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Oxford: Polity, 2002), p. 20. 7. For example, Mark Curtis, The Web of Deceit (London: Vintage, 2003). 8. Tony Blair, ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, 22 Apr. 1999. Emphasis added. 9. Cited in John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: Phoenix, 2003), p. 64. 10. The first quote is from Adrian Hewitt, ‘Beyond Poverty? The new UK policy on international development and globalisation’, Third World Quarterly, 22: 2 (2001), p. 291; the second is from Richard Dowden, ‘Clare Short’, Prospect, Issue 74 (May 2002), p. 42. 11. John Dickie, The New Mandarins (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), pp. 225–6. 12. Dowden, ‘Clare Short’, p. 44. 13. For details of the connections see David Slater and Morag Bell, ‘Aid and the geopolitics of the post-colonial: Critical reflections on New Labour’s overseas development strategy’, Development and Change, 33: 2 (2002), pp. 335–60. It should also be noted that DFID had a considerable input into shaping OECD strategies in this area, particularly with regard to conflict prevention. See Mukesh Kapila and Karin Wermester, ‘Development and conflict: new approaches in the United Kingdom’, in Fen O. Hampson and David M. Malone (eds), From Reaction to Conflict Prevention (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 297–320. 14. See Paul Cammack, ‘Making the poor work for globalisation?’, New Political Economy, 6: 3 (2001), pp. 397–408. 15. Alan Whaites, ‘The new UK White Paper on international development: an NGO perspective’, Journal of International Development, 10: 2 (1998), p. 203. 16. Hewitt, ‘Beyond poverty?’, p. 294. 17. Adrian Hewitt and Tony Killick, ‘The 1975 and 1997 White Papers compared: enriched vision, depleted policies?’, Journal of International Development, 10: 2 (1998), p. 194. 18. Ralph A. Young, ‘New Labour and international development’, in David Coates and Peter Lawler (eds), New Labour in Power (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 261. 19. Hewitt, ‘Beyond poverty?’, p. 294. That said, unlike the 1997 White Paper it did promise a new international development act. See also Slater and Bell, ‘Aid and geopolitics’. For a retrospective analysis (and defence) of the White

Notes 241

20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42.

43.

Paper from DFID’s Chief Economist see Adrian Wood, ‘The 2000 White Paper Reconsidered’, Journal of International Development, 16: 7 (2004), pp. 933–7. Hewitt, ‘Beyond poverty?’, p. 295. ‘Short change’, Economist, 31 Oct. 2002. Initially the aid/GNI ratio dropped to 0.23 per cent in 1999. DFID claimed this was in large part due to changes in how the financial year was measured. Slater and Bell, ‘Aid and geopolitics’, p. 337. Paying the Price: Why Rich Countries Must Invest Now in a War on Poverty (Oxford: Oxfam International, 2005), p. 34. Cited in Dowden, ‘Clare Short’, p. 43. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, p. 3. Young, ‘New Labour and international development’, p. 265. Tony Blair, ‘Foreword’, in Making Globalisation Work, p. 6. See International Finance Facility (London: HM Treasury/DFID, Jan. 2003), the up-dated version of April 2004, and Gordon Brown’s speech to the Chatham House Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility, Chatham House, London, 22 Jan. 2003. For a sympathetic academic analysis of the Facility see Paul Mosley, ‘Avoiding the Elephant Traps’, Journal of International Development, 16: 6 (2004), pp. 879–86. Dowden, ‘Clare Short’, p. 46. Dickie, The New Mandarins, p. 197. ‘Stop Short’, Economist, 14 Aug. 1997. For example, Gordon Brown and Clare Short, ‘Our response to protesters’, Guardian, 4 Jul. 2001. Curtis, The Web of Deceit, pp. 228 and 215–16. For a survey of some of the most important relationships between Blair’s government and activist NGOs see Dickie, The New Mandarins, chapters 8 and 9. Simon Maxwell and Roger Riddell, ‘Conditionality or contract: perspectives on partnership for development’, Journal of International Development, 10: 2 (1998), pp. 264. Slater and Bell, ‘Aid and the geopolitics’, pp. 349–52. ‘Alms for armies’, Economist, 11 Mar. 1999. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, pp. 15, 139–44. ‘Short change’, Economist, 31 Oct. 2002. Dowden, ‘Clare Short’, p. 46. This section builds upon the arguments set out in Rob Dixon and Paul Williams, ‘Tough on debt, tough on the causes of debt? New Labour’s Third Way foreign policy’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 3: 2 (2001), pp. 150–72. For details see Mark Hillyard, Cancellation of Third World Debt (London: House of Commons Research Paper 98/81, 4 Aug. 1998) and Third World Debt: After the Okinawa Summit (London: House of Commons Research Paper 00/75, 8 Aug. 2000). When a state had achieved three years of such reform it reached its ‘Decision Point’. At this stage the creditors would examine the country’s ‘debt-overhang’ and establish what additional relief, if any, was required to reduce its debt to an affordable level. If additional relief was thought necessary, the state in question had to undergo a further period of up to three years satisfactory economic adjustment. If this additional set of reforms were deemed successful,

242 Notes

44.

45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51.

52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

57. 58.

59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

the state in question would be deemed to have reached its ‘Completion Point’. Jubilee 2000 itself was formed in April 1996. The details come from Marlene Barrett (ed.), The World Will Never Be the Same Again (London: Jubilee 2000 Coalition and World Vision, Dec. 2000). FCO, Debt 2000 Initiative: The Mauritius Initiative (London: FCO Briefing Note, 1999), p. 2. FCO, The Cologne Debt Initiative (London: Focus International/FCO, 1999), pp. 3–4. See, for instance, the front-page headline: Larry Elliott, ‘Britain ends third world debt’, Guardian, 18 Dec. 1999. Barrett, The World, p. 8. The 42 HIPC-eligible states form the majority of the 52 states identified by Jubilee 2000 as needing total or near-total debt cancellation. Gordon Brown, ‘Smash the chains’, Guardian, 21 Dec. 1999. ‘Britain to renounce debt payments’, HM Treasury, Press Release 142/00, 2 Dec. 2000. Ashok Sinha, Call For Change ( Jubilee Debt Campaign and World Development Movement, March 2004) at www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/ media/reports/callforchangefinalapr2004.doc ‘UK Chancellor pledges £100 million for Multilateral Debt Cancellation: But can we really cheer twice?’ (1 Oct. 2004) at www.jubilee2000uk.org/latest/ brown011004.htm. See also Larry Elliott, ‘Brown to bail out world’s poorest’, Guardian, 25 Sept. 2004. Will Hutton, ‘The Jubilee line that works’, Observer, 3 Oct. 1999. See Dixon and Williams, ‘Tough on debt’, pp. 167–8. Barrett, The World, pp. 14–15. See Robin Marris, ‘Eliminating debt will not save the poor’, Guardian, 11 Oct. 1999 and Tony Killick, ‘Politics, evidence and the new aid agenda’, Development Policy Review, 22: 1 (2004), pp. 7–8. Robin Cook, ‘Conflict prevention in the modern world’, speech to the fifty-fourth session of the UN General Assembly, New York, 21 Sept. 1999. My account relies upon Michael Byers, ‘The law and politics of the Pinochet case’, Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, 10 (2000), pp. 415–41 and Marc Weller, ‘On the hazards of foreign travel for dictators and other international criminals’, International Affairs, 75: 3 (1999), pp. 599–617. According to Marc Weller, in contrast to classic and modern international law, ‘Contemporary international law … recognises that there exists an international public order. The very definition of the state and of its powers and rights is not a given. Instead it is the international constitutional order which assigns or limits powers which may be exercised by states and other international actors.’ Weller, ‘On the hazards’, p. 599. Byers, ‘The law and politics’, pp. 421–2. Ibid., p. 425. On the importance of public opinion in this case see ibid. Fred Halliday, ‘New Labour abroad’, Prospect, Issue 64 ( Jun. 2001), p. 29. Weller, ‘On the hazards’, pp. 616–17.

Notes 243 65. For example, Byers, ‘The law and politics’, p. 425 and Leila Sadat, The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law (Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2002), p. 7. 66. Tony Lloyd, MP, press conference, 15 June 1998, Rome at www.un.org/icc/ journal/156ukpc.htm 67. Spyros Economides, ‘The international criminal court’, in Karen E. Smith and Margot Light (eds), Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 119. 68. For details of the arguments see Jason Ralph, ‘Europe, the US and the ICC: An international society perspective’, paper presented to the Fifth Pan-European International Relations Conference, The Hague, 10 Sept. 2004. 69. See S/PV.4772, 12 Jun. 2003. 70. S/PV.4772, pp. 22–3. The US subsequently failed to get exemptions for peace operations in the DRC in 2002 but succeeded in getting them for missions in Liberia in 2003. Ralph, ‘Europe, the US and the ICC’, pp. 11–13. 71. Tony Blair, ‘Speech on climate change’, London, 14 Sept. 2004. 72. Ibid. 73. See, for instance, the section on the environment in the MOD’s, The Future Strategic Context of Defence (2001) at www.mod.uk/issues/strategic_context/ physical.htm 74. Michael Grub, ‘Britannia waives the rules: The UK, the EU and climate change’, New Economy, 9: 3 (2002), p. 140. 75. Ibid., p. 139. 76. Hermann E. Ott, ‘Climate change: an important foreign policy issue’, International Affairs, 77: 2 (2001), p. 292. 77. Blair, ‘Speech on climate change’. 78. A European emission trading system began operating on a trial basis in 2005. The plan was for it to be fully operational by 2008. 79. Grub, ‘Britannia waives the rules’, p. 141. 80. Tom Baldwin, ‘Britain’s secret plan for new global climate pact’, Times, 9 Dec. 2004 and Bronwen Maddox, ‘Blair’s new climate deal is little more than Cloud Nine’, Times, 9 Dec. 2004. 81. Valerie Elliott, ‘Growth in travel means Britain will miss its own greenhouse target’, Times, 9 Dec. 2004. 82. Richard Black, ‘UK emissions rise “within target” ’, BBC News Online, 22 Mar. 2005. 83. 2001 General Election: 4 Party Manifesto Analysis – the Environment Agenda (Friends of the Earth Report, May 2001) at www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/ 4_party_manifesto_analysis.pdf 84. Peter Hall cited in Andrew Jordan, The Europeanization of British Environmental Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 2. 85. I owe this point to Matt McDonald. 86. Peter Newell and Matthew Paterson, ‘A climate for business’, Review of International Political Economy, 5: 4 (1998), pp. 679–703. 87. John Browne, Group Chief Executive of BP Plc, for instance, has argued that ‘emission trading regimes … are the best policy for encouraging business’ to pursue sustainable practices. John Browne, ‘Beyond Kyoto’, Foreign Affairs, 83: 4 (2004), p. 28.

244 Notes 88. Blair, ‘Speech on Climate Change’. 89. See Newell and Paterson, ‘A climate for business’.

8

Other People’s Wars

1. ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Chicago. 2. Blair’s five questions were devised by Professor Lawrence Freedman of King’s College London. See John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: The Free Press, 2003), pp. 50–3. 3. Chris Brown, ‘Selective Humanitarianism: in defence of inconsistency’, in Deen K. Chatterjee and Don E. Scheid (eds), Ethics and Foreign Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 35. 4. For example, Robin Cook, ‘Guiding humanitarian intervention’, speech to the American Bar Association, London, 19 Jul. 2000. 5. See Nicholas J. Wheeler and Tim Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy’, International Affairs, 74: 4 (1998), pp. 847–70. 6. See Mark Curtis, The Web of Deceit (London: Vintage, 2003). 7. Hedley Bull, ‘Justice in international relations’, in Kai Alderson and Andrew Hurrell (eds), Hedley Bull on International Society (Houndmills: Macmillan, 2000), p. 243. 8. On the impact of British imperialism see Judith Brown and Wm Roger Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 9. Michael W. Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberal legacies and foreign affairs, Part 2’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12: 4 (1983), p. 330. 10. Michael W. Doyle, ‘To the Editors’, International Security, 19: 4 (1995), pp. 180–1. 11. ‘The dashing Mr Blair’, Economist, 10 Jan. 2002. 12. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, pp. 349, 351. For a similar approach to explaining the UK decision to invade Iraq in 2003 see David Coates and Joel Krieger, Blair’s War (Cambridge: Polity, 2004). 13. Peter Hennessy, ‘The Blair Style and the Requirements of Twenty-First Century Premiership’, Political Quarterly, 71: 4 (2000), p. 390. 14. I take these to be four central themes in Kampfner, Blair’s Wars; Anthony Seldon, Blair (London: Free Press, 2004); James Naughtie, The Accidental American (New York: Public Affairs, 2004); and Philip Stevens, Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader (New York: Viking, 2004). 15. For a good discussion of these reforms see Martin Burch and Ian Holliday, ‘The Blair Government and the Core Executive’, Government and Opposition, 39: 1 (2004), pp. 1–21. 16. See Paul Williams, ‘Who’s making UK foreign policy?’, International Affairs, 80: 5 (2004), pp. 911–29. 17. The three security logics of power (Thomas Hobbes), order (Hugo Grotius) and emancipation (Immanuel Kant) are discussed in Ken Booth and Nicholas Wheeler, ‘Contending philosophies about security in Europe’, in Colin McInnes (ed.), Security and Strategy in the New Europe (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 3–36.

Notes 245 18. Lawrence Freedman, ‘The coming war on terrorism’, Political Quarterly, 73: S1 (2002), p. 55. 19. ‘The global threat of terrorism’, speech, Sedgefield, 5 March 2004. 20. Report of the Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility (UN, 2004), p. 2. 21. See, for example, The Causes of Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa (DFID, FCO, MOD: Framework Document, Oct. 2001). 22. Mark Curtis, ‘Britain’s real foreign policy and the failure of British academia’, International Relations, 18: 3 (2004), p. 285. 23. For a defence of the inconsistent application of humanitarian principles in foreign policy see Brown, ‘Selective Humanitarianism’. 24. FCO minister, Chris Mullin, speech to Joint Meeting of Seven All Party Groups on Intervention, 13 Jul. 2004. 25. ‘Guiding humanitarian intervention’, speech to the American Bar Association, London, 19 Jul. 2000. Cook’s criteria were also endorsed by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on foreign affairs, Menzies Campbell. See Robin Cook and Menzies Campbell, ‘Revised role in humanitarian tragedies’ (3 Sept. 2000) available at www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/lessons/cook.htm. 26. ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Council, 2001). 27. Mullin, speech to Joint Meeting on Intervention. Annan’s plan entailed (1) preventing armed conflict, which usually provides the context for genocide, (2) protection of civilians in armed conflict, including a mandate for UN peacekeepers to protect civilians, (3) ending impunity through judicial action in both national and international courts, (4) information gathering and early warning through a UN Special Advisor for Genocide Prevention making recommendations to the UN Security Council on actions to prevent or halt genocide, and (5) swift and decisive action along a continuum of steps, including military action. UN Press Release, SG/SM/9197, AFR/893, HR/CN/1077, 7 April 2004. 28. Hansard (Commons), 9 Jun. 2004, col. 275. For a discussion of why humanitarian intervention would have been legitimate in Darfur see Paul D. Williams and Alex J. Bellamy, ‘The responsibility to protect and the crisis in Darfur’, Security Dialogue, 36: 1 (2005), pp. 27–47. 29. See Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Ian Brownlie and C.J. Apperley, ‘Kosovo crisis inquiry: memorandum on the international law aspects’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 49 (Oct. 2000), pp. 878–905; IICK, Kosovo Report (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 30. Adam Roberts, ‘The so-called “right” of humanitarian intervention’, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, 3 (Summer 2001), pp. 49–51. 31. See Simon Chesterman, ‘Hard cases make bad law’, in Anthony Lang (ed.), Just Intervention (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003), p. 53. 32. IICK, Kosovo Report, p. 4. 33. ‘The global threat of terrorism’. 34. Michael Byers, War Law (London: Atlantic Books), pp. 106, 108. 35. Chesterman, ‘Hard cases’, p. 54. See also Chesterman, Just War, p. 231. 36. FCO minister, Bill Rammell, ‘International Day of UN Peacekeepers’, speech to RUSI–UNA peacekeeping seminar, London, 2 Jun. 2004.

246 Notes 37. William J. Durch Victoria K. Holt, Caroline R. Earle, Moira K. Shanahan, The Brahimi Report and the Future of UN Peace Operations (Washington DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003), pp. 122–8. 38. Rammell, ‘International Day of UN Peacekeepers’. 39. Statistics for 1997–2000 are from www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/data/. 40. These and all subsequent statistics are from the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations at www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/ 41. Delivering Security in a Changing World: Supporting Essays (London: TSO Cm 6041-II, Dec. 2003), p. 3. 42. Rammell, ‘International Day of UN Peacekeepers’. 43. The Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (A/55/305-S/2000/ 809, 21 Aug. 2000). 44. Cook and Campbell, ‘Revised role’. 45. See Tom Woodhouse and Alexander Ramsbotham, ‘United Kingdom’, in David S. Sorenson and Pia Christina Wood (eds), The National Politics of Peacekeeping (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 95–113. 46. See Joint Warfare Publication 3–50: The Military Contribution to Peace Support Operations (Swindon: MoD, 2nd edition, Jun. 2004). 47. See Mary Kaldor, Old and New Wars (Cambridge: Polity, 1999) and Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Cambridge: Polity, 2003). 48. The government’s perspective on many of these issues is set out in its Annual Human Rights reports and the FCO’s Annual Departmental Reports, available at www.fco.gov.uk 49. Ituri: Unkept Promises? A Pretense of Protection and Inadequate Assistance (Médecins Sans Frontières Report, 25 July 2003) at www.msf.org.au/docs/ reports/drc.pdf 50. See Ståle Ulriksen, Catriona Gourlay, Catriona Mace, ‘Operation Artemis: The shape of things to come?’, International Peacekeeping, 11: 3 (2004), pp. 508–25. 51. The UK helped fund various diplomatic initiatives (totalling some £185,000 by the end of 2000) and provided only six personnel to MONUC. 52. See International Crisis Group, Rwanda/Uganda: A Dangerous War of Nerves (Nairobi/Brussels: ICG Africa Briefing, 21 Dec. 2001). 53. See Human Rights Watch (HRW), Ituri: ‘Covered in Blood’ (New York: HRW Report, Vol. 15, No. 11 (A), Jul. 2003), pp. 54–5. 54. ‘The British connection’, Africa Confidential, 43: 21 (25 Oct. 2002), p. 3. 55. All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention, Cursed by Riches: Who Benefits from Resource Exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo? (Nov. 2002), p. 36. 56. Between September 1999 and the end of 2002, Russian Defence Ministry figures suggested the war had killed over 4500 of its soldiers and wounded more than 15,500. Determining the ‘demography of death’ for Chechen casualties was virtually impossible. By late 2002, estimates for civilian deaths ranged from ‘over 10,000’ but ‘clearly less than 20,000’ (from the Memorial Society’s Human Rights Centre) up to 80,000 by the Chechen Anti-War Congress. Human Rights Watch, which had estimated between 6500 and 10,500 civilians had died in the first nine months of the second war, suggested the 80,000 figure was ‘unreliable’. Radio Free Europe, ‘Juggling the numbers of living and dead in Chechnya’, (Un)Civil Societies Report: Vol. 3, No. 40, 2 Oct. 2002 available at www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/

Notes 247 57. For details see S. Neil MacFarlane, ‘What the international community can do to settle the conflict’, Central Asia and the Caucusus, No. 004 (Jul. 2000), pp. 150–2. 58. Blair (Nov. 1999) cited in John Rentoul, Tony Blair: Prime Minister (London: Little, Brown & Company, 2001), p. 582. 59. Curtis, The Web of Deceit, pp. 179, 157. See also ‘Whichever way the wind blows’, Economist, 20 April 2000. It should be noted that although the death toll in Kosovo before NATO’s intervention was not on the scale of the war in Chechnya, Milosevic’s government was directly responsible for some 250,000 deaths in Bosnia between 1992 and 95. 60. See, for example, Tony Blair, Hansard (Commons), 13 Dec. 1999, cols 22–3 and Robin Cook, Hansard (Commons), 14 Mar. 2000, cols 159–60 and 19 Jul. 2001, col. 444. 61. For example, the open letters sent by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to Tony Blair (1 Oct. 2002; 19 Jun. 2003) and Jack Straw (9 Sept. 2004); Rachel Denber, ‘ “Glad to be deceived”: the International Community and Chechnya’, in HRW, World Report 2004 at http://hrw.org/wr2k4/ 7.htm#_Toc58744956; and Curtis, The Web of Deceit, pp. 157–79. 62. See Curtis, The Web of Deceit, pp. 176–7. 63. Ibid., pp. 157 and 172. 64. See, for example, Robin Cook, Hansard (Commons), 7 Dec. 1999, cols 695 and 697, 14 March 2000, cols 159–60, 19 July 2001, col. 444; and Cook’s list of actions in FAC, Relations with the Russian Federation: Third Report, 1999–2000 (London: TSO, HC-101, 28 Feb. 2000), para. 19. 65. Nick Paton Walsh, ‘Russian troops terrorise farmers as Chechen war crosses border’, Guardian, 26 June 2003 and Denber, ‘Glad to be deceived’. 66. Vanora Bennett, ‘A war in a faraway land that Putin wants to cover up’, Times, 25 Jun. 2003. 67. FAC, Relations with the Russian Federation, para. 21. 68. MacFarlane, ‘What the international community’, p. 154. 69. Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), pp. 67–80. 70. See Neil Cooper, ‘Conflict goods: the challenges for peacekeeping and conflict prevention’, International Peacekeeping, 8: 3 (2001), pp. 21–38 and ‘State collapse as business: the role of conflict trade and the emerging control agenda’, Development and Change, 33: 5 (2002), pp. 935–55. 71. See John Dickie, The New Mandarins (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), pp. 170–3. 72. Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation (London: TSO, HCP 577, 2002). 73. Cathy Newman, ‘Straw backs stricter controls on mercenaries’, Financial Times, 12 Feb. 2002. 74. Both the government and the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) agreed that ‘an outright ban on all military activity abroad by PMCs would be counterproductive’. FAC, Private Military Companies: Ninth Report, Session 2001–02 (London: TSO HC-922, July 2002), p. 41 and the Government’s response (Cm 5642, Oct. 2002), p. 4. 75. FAC, Private Military Companies, p. 43, and Government’s response, p. 6. By spring 2005, UK PSCs had failed to agree upon a code of conduct. 76. David Isenberg, A Fistful of Contractors: The Case for a Pragmatic Assessment of PMCs in Iraq (BASIC Research Report 2004, Sept. 2004), p. 45 at www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2004PMC.htm

248 Notes 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

‘Mercenaries: The Baghdad boom’, Economist, 27 March 2004. Isenberg, A Fistful of Contractors, pp. 29–30. ‘Mercenaries: the Baghdad boom’, Economist, 27 March 2004. Isenberg, A Fistful of Contractors, pp. 26–7. Ibid., p. 48. Seldon, Blair, p. 602.

9

Iraq and Labour’s Moment in the Middle East

1. Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales, The War in Iraq (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 132. 2. For example, William Shawcross, Allies (New York: Public Affairs, 2004) and The Economist magazine, especially the 22 Feb. 2003 issue. For Blair’s retrospective defence of the war see ‘The global threat of terrorism’, speech, Sedgefield, 4 March 2003. 3. On 18 March 2003 the US State Department announced a list of the 30 states publicly prepared to associate themselves with US-led action against Iraq: Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. 4. David Coates and Joel Krieger, Blair’s War (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), p. 92. 5. Cited in Michael Byers, ‘Agreeing to disagree: Security Council Resolution 1441 and intentional ambiguity’, Global Governance, 10: 2 (2004), p. 184 note 32. 6. Jane M.O. Sharp, ‘Tony Blair, Iraq and the special relationship’, International Journal, 59: 1 (2003–04), p. 84. 7. See Lawrence Freedman, ‘War in Iraq: selling the threat’, Survival, 46: 2 (2004), p. 25. 8. William Wallace, ‘Broken Bridges’, World Today, 60: 12 (2004), pp. 13–15. 9. Tony Blair, ‘The opportunity society’ speech to Labour party conference, Brighton, 28 Sept. 2004. 10. Tony Blair, ‘I want to solve the Iraq issue via the UN’, speech to Labour party conference, Glasgow, 15 Feb. 2003. 11. In October 1998, the US passed the Iraq Liberation Act. This committed the US to regime change in Iraq and to finance several Iraqi opposition groups. 12. Hansard (Commons), 17 Dec. 1998, col. 1103. 13. For details of incursions during Blair’s administration see the chapters on Iraq and Kurdistan in Human Rights Watch’s World Reports from 1998 onwards: http://hrw.org/reports/world/reports/. 14. Mark Curtis, The Web of Deceit (London: Vintage, 2003), p. 45. 15. George Robertson, Hansard (Commons), 17 Dec. 1998, col. 652. 16. Tony Blair, Hansard (Commons), 17 Dec. 1998, col. 1097. 17. John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: The Free Press, 2003), pp. 153, 349. 18. Cited in Marc Weller, ‘The US, Iraq and the use of force in a unipolar world’, Survival, 41: 4 (1999–2000), p. 84. 19. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK Ambassador to the UN, S/PV.3955, 16 Dec. 1998, p. 6. 20. S/PV.3939, 5 Nov. 1998, p. 10.

Notes 249 21. S/PV.3955, pp. 4–5. 22. Rosalyn Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 259. 23. Weller, ‘The US, Iraq’, p. 89. 24. Ibid., p. 91. 25. Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 201. It should be noted that the Secretary-General’s statements do not determine international law. 26. Adam Roberts, ‘Law and the use of force after Iraq’, Survival, 45: 2 (2003), p. 42. 27. This position was adopted by Nigel D. White, ‘The legality of the threat of force against Iraq’, Security Dialogue, 30: 1 (1999), p. 84 and Bjørn Møller, ‘The slippery slope of authority eroded’, Security Dialogue, 30: 1 (1999), pp. 87–90. 28. Frank Berman, ‘The authorization model: Resolution 678 and its effects’, in David M. Malone (ed.), The UN Security Council (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004), p. 164 note 28. 29. Abbas Alnaswari, ‘Iraq: economic embargo and predatory rule’, in E. Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart and Raimo Väyrynen (eds), War, Hunger, and Displacement: The Origins of Humanitarian Emergencies Vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 89–118. 30. Ibid., p. 112. 31. Hansard (Commons), 16 Dec. 1998, col. 532. 32. According to Eric Herring, from the imposition of sanctions until mid1997, approximately 720,000 deaths occurred in Iraq above the normal rate. Children were among the groups worst affected because they were especially vulnerable to malnutrition, polluted water and poor medical care. ‘Between Iraq and a hard place: a critique of the British government’s case for UN economic sanctions’, Review of International Studies, 28: 1 (2002), pp. 29–56. 33. During the sanctions, Saddam’s regime consistently favoured certain groups (particularly the military, police and security forces) with economic and other privileges. In 1995, these groups were estimated to constitute some 3.5 million people. This left out another 17.2 million Iraqis or 83 per cent of the population. Alnaswari, ‘Iraq’, p. 110. 34. For example, Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday, ‘The hostage nation’, Guardian, 29 Nov. 2001; Curtis, The Web of Deceit, pp. 28–33; and Herring, ‘Between Iraq’. 35. David Cortright and George A. Lopez, The Sanctions Decade (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 56–7. 36. Tony Lloyd, Hansard (Commons), 15 March 1999, cols 515–16. 37. See also, Freedman, ‘War in Iraq’, pp. 16–18. 38. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction (London: TSO, HC 898, 2004), para. 257. Hereafter, the Butler Report. 39. Hansard (Commons), 18 March 2003, cols 764–5. 40. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 287. 41. Patrick Wintour and Martin Kettle, ‘Brought to the brink of defeat: Part 2’, Guardian, 26 April 2003. 42. ‘What turned it for Tony’, Economist, 22 March 2003. 43. James P. Rubin, ‘Stumbling into war’, Foreign Affairs, 82: 5 (2003), pp. 46–66.

250 Notes 44. See, for example, Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 169; Martin Kettle, ‘America wanted war’, Guardian, 16 July 2003; Coates and Krieger, Blair’s War, p. 127 and Anthony Seldon, Blair (London: The Free Press, 2004), p. 599. 45. On the opposition to the UN route from, among others, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz see Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). 46. In summer 2002, the Attorney-General stated that a further Security Council resolution would be required to legalise an invasion. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (paperback edn), p. 378. 47. Cited in Patrick Wintour and Martin Kettle, ‘Brought to the brink of defeat: Part 1’, Guardian, 26 April 2003. 48. Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 338. 49. Hansard (Commons), 14 July 2004, cols 1434 and 1436. 50. Cited in the Butler Report, para. 268. Emphasis added. 51. Cited in Wintour and Kettle, ‘Brought to the brink of defeat: Part 1’. 52. Christoph Bluth, ‘The British road to war’, International Affairs, 80: 5 (2004), p. 882; see also p. 884. 53. Tony Blair, Hansard (Commons), 18 March 2003, col. 768. 54. Freedman, ‘War in Iraq’, p. 38. 55. For Blair, Saddam’s continued intransigence was clear from the 12,000 page document about Iraq’s WMD submitted on 7 December 2002 in response to resolution 1441. Blair told his staff, this was ‘the defining moment. That was his [Saddam’s] big opportunity. He’s blown it.’ Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 230. 56. Roberts, ‘Law and the use’, p. 48. 57. Seldon, Blair, pp. 571, 583. 58. Cited in Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 302. 59. Hansard (Commons), 14 July 2004, col. 1432. 60. UK government strategy document (May 1999) cited in the Butler Report, para. 215. 61. Bluth, ‘The British road’, p. 879. 62. Hansard (Commons), 24 Sept. 2002, col. 3. 63. Hansard (Lords), 17 March 2003, cols WA2–3. Later, it was reported that the formulation of this argument owed a great deal to Christopher Greenwood, professor of international law at the London School of Economics. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (paperback edn), p. 379. For Greenwood’s opinion, which does indeed mirror that of the Attorney-General, see Christopher Greenwood, ‘International law and the pre-emptive use of force: Afghanistan, Al-Qaida, and Iraq’, San Diego International Law Journal, 7 (2003), pp. 7–37. 64. Michael Byers, War Law (London: Atlantic Books, 2005), p. 44. 65. These quotes are from Curtis, The Web of Deceit, p. 9; Kampfner, ‘War and law’; Lord Alexander of Weedon QC cited in Iain Byrne and Stuart Weir, ‘Democratic audit: executive democracy in war and peace’, Parliamentary Affairs, 57: 2 (2004), p. 457; and Vaughan Lowe, ‘The Iraq crisis: what now?’, International Comparative Law Quarterly, 52 (Oct. 2003), p. 866 respectively. 66. Lowe, ‘The Iraq crisis’, p. 865. 67. Byers, ‘Agreeing to disagree’, p. 172. 68. S/PV.4644, 8 Nov. 2002, p. 5.

Notes 251 69. See Gerard Baker, James Blitz, Judy Dempsey, Robert Graham, Quentin Peel and Mark Turner, ‘Blair’s mission impossible: the doomed effort to win a second UN resolution’, Financial Times, 29 May 2003. 70. Roberts, ‘Law and the use of force’, p. 44 and ‘Adam Roberts replies’, Survival, 45: 4 (2003), p. 230. The doubtful quality of the evidence about Iraq’s WMD capabilities was reflected in the fact that by August 2003, not one of the nine main conclusions of the September 2002 dossier had been proven. See Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 347. Blair later confirmed that ‘The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong. I acknowledge that and accept it. I simply point out, such evidence was agreed by the whole international community. … I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can’t, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power.’ Blair, ‘The opportunity society’. 71. Byers, ‘Agreeing to disagree’, p. 171. 72. Bluth, ‘The British road’, p. 880. 73. Sir Jeremy Greenstock cited in Seldon, Blair, p. 588. 74. I owe this point to Jason Ralph. 75. Byers, ‘Agreeing to disagree’, p. 173. Byers’ emphasis on the importance of plausibility stems from Sir Arthur Watt’s contention that states needed only ‘to advance a legal justification for their conduct which is not demonstrably rubbish. Thereafter, political factors can take over. … In light of this, if politics is the art of the possible, then international law is merely the art of the plausible.’ Sir Arthur Watts, ‘The importance of international law’, in Michael Byers (ed.), The Role of Law in International Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 8. 76. Byers, ‘Agreeing to disagree’, pp. 174–5. 77. Ibid., p. 166. 78. Attorney-General memo to Prime Minister Tony Blair, ‘Iraq: Resolution 1441’, 7 March 2003, para. 30. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/ bsp/hi/pdfs/28_04_05_attorney_general.pdf 79. My account draws heavily from Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, pp. 129–53. 80. Ibid., p. 252. 81. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (paperback edn), p. 334. 82. Cited in Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 317. 83. This was implicit in the Azores Declaration issued by the leaders of the UK, Spain and the US in mid-March 2003. ‘Statement of the Azores Summit’, Washington Post, 17 March 2003. 84. Sharp, ‘Tony Blair’, p. 81. 85. Charles Tripp, ‘The US and state-building in Iraq’, Review of International Studies, 30: 4 (2004), pp. 545–58. 86. Rosemary Hollis, ‘A fateful decision for Britain’, in Rick Fawn and Ray Hinnebusch (eds), The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming). 87. Hansard (Commons), 14 July 2004, col. 1441. 88. Ibid., col. 1432. In December 2003, after a series of negotiations, Libya announced that it wanted to give up its nuclear weapons programme in

252 Notes

89.

90. 91. 92.

93. 94. 95. 96.

97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

104.

return for the normalisation of diplomatic relations with the West and economic assistance. The UK accepted this offer on 19 December. In a Christmas radio broadcast, Blair stated, ‘The Iraq Survey Group has uncovered massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories’ in Iraq. Cited in Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (paperback edn), p. 360. See also Blair, ‘The global threat of terrorism’. Cited in Hollis, ‘A fateful decision’. Cited in Anthony Sampson, Who Runs This Place? (London: John Murray, 2004), p. 154. Gallup opinion poll data from May 2003 suggested that 55 per cent of UK citizens felt that the Iraq war had made the world a ‘more dangerous place’. Cited in Philip Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at War (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p. 192. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (paperback edn), pp. 356–7. FAC, Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism: Second Report, 2003–04 (London: TSO, HC 81, 2004), paras 329 and 123. See the Foreign Secretary’s response to the FAC report (London: TSO Cm 6162, 2004), p. 10. See Ingrid van Biezen, ‘Terrorism and democratic legitimacy: conflicting interpretations of the Spanish elections’, Mediterranean Politics, 10: 1 (2005), pp. 99–108. Fred Halliday, ‘Terrorism and World Politics’, World Today, 61: 5 (2005), p. 16. Edward Said, ‘A road map to where?’, London Review of Books: Online, 25: 12 (19 June 2003). ‘Angry ambassadors’, Economist, 1 May 2004. FAC, Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism: Seventh Report, 2003–04 (London: TSO, HC 441-I, 2004), para. 61. Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War, p. 155. My account draws upon ibid., pp. 136–41. For the genesis of the statements see Quentin Peel, James Harding, Judy Dempsey, Gerard Baker and Robert Graham, ‘The plot that split old and new Europe’, Financial Times, 27 May 2003. Wallace, ‘Broken Bridges’.

Conclusions 1. William Wallace, ‘The collapse of British foreign policy’, International Affairs, 81: 1 (2005), pp. 53–68. 2. Although British participation in the Interim Emergency Multinational Force in the DRC ( June–September 2003) took place under the EU umbrella, the force included contributions from non-EU states and thus qualifies as a coalition rather than a solely EU operation. 3. See Stephen Gill, ‘Theorizing the interregnum: The double movement and global politics in the 1990s’, in Bjorn Hettne (ed.), International Political Economy: Understanding Global Disorder (London: Zed, 1995), pp. 65–99. 4. IISS, The Military Balance (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 359.

Index 9/11 terrorist attacks, 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, 21, 29, 36, 40, 41, 43–8, 49, 50, 51, 56, 57, 69, 71–2, 75, 79, 99, 108, 120, 121–2, 124, 126, 128, 133, 134, 138, 140, 145, 169, 180, 186–8, 192–7, 210; see also terrorism: ‘war on terrorism’ Abbasi, Feroz, 221n83 Aceh, 172; see also Indonesia ACTSA (Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001), 46 Adam Smith Institute, 88 Afghanistan, 4, 41, 43, 46, 48, 71, 128, 136, 165, 166, 169, 170, 172, 173, 176, 178, 184, 194, 205, 209, 212, 219n40, 220n63, 221n65, 221n79, 222nn86–7, 222n89, 222n95, 227n79, 229n24, 248n3; drug trade, 54, 170, 182, 222n91; Interim Administration, 53; Northern Alliance, 50, 53, 221n79; PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams), 54–5; United Front, 50, 221n65; US-led invasion of, 8, 26, 29, 36, 45, 49–55, 164, 166, 168; see also Operation Enduring Freedom; Taliban African Development Bank, 151 African Union, 80, 92 aid, overseas, 17, 20, 48, 54, 71, 75, 80, 87–8, 93–4, 95, 134, 146–7, 149, 150, 151, 152, 162, 180, 181, 182, 201, 227n1, 230n53, 234n66, 241n22; see also DFID Airbus A400M, 125, 138 Albania, 63, 64, 67, 128, 224n25, 248n3 Albright, Madeleine, 224n22 Algeria, 79, 86, 172 Alnasrawi, Abbas, 191 AMIB (African Union Mission in Burundi), 80

Amnesty International, 46, 52, 155 Amos, Baroness, 145 ANC (African National Congress, South Africa), 230n48 Angola, 79, 80, 81, 82, 86, 89, 165, 170, 178, 182, 183, 228n8 Annan, Kofi, 53, 173, 245n27; see also UN: Secretary General Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 40, 132, 134; see also nuclear weapons; US: NMD Argentina, 114, 225n42 Armenia, 136 arms exports, 2, 9, 16, 18, 20, 23, 31, 79, 82, 83, 85, 86, 95, 96, 119, 122, 123, 134–40, 148, 162, 181, 183, 190, 209, 211, 212, 214n2, 230n48, 239nn84–5 Arms-to-Africa affair, 20, 82, 83, 183; see also Sierra Leone Atlanticism, 7, 8, 15, 28, 29–30, 36–7, 55, 57, 69, 78, 101, 121, 140, 144, 163, 166, 168, 171, 186–7, 193, 194, 206, 207–8, 210–11 Attorney-General, see Goldsmith, Lord QC Australia, 41, 166, 185, 248n3 Azerbaijan, 248n3 Aznar, José Maria, 204 BAE Systems, 26, 86, 139–40, 230n48, 239n91 Bahrain, 225n42 Balkans, 21, 40, 62–3, 70, 73, 128, 129, 165, 176 Balls, Ed, 42, 106 Bangladesh, 153 Bank of England, 30, 104, 106 Barclays Bank, 86 Barder, Brian, 2–3, 58–9, 131 Basayev, Shamill, 179 al-Bashir, Omar Hassan Ahmad, 81

253

254 Index Battle for Seattle, 111, 146; see also WTO Belgium, 70, 71, 72, 73, 154, 206, 227n79 Bell, Morag, 149 Bellamy, Alex J., 62 Benin, 230n64 Benn, Hilary, 145, 174 Benn, Tony, 65 Berman, Frank, 190 Berne Group, 41 big emerging markets, 100 Bin Laden, Usama, 45, 49, 51; see also al-Qa’ida Blair, Tony, 2, 10, 20, 167, 168, 218n7; 9/11 terrorist attacks, 43–8, 175, 192, 194–5, 233n27; Afghanistan, 50, 227n79; Africa, 8–9, 74, 75–6, 87, 93, 144–5, 153; Atlanticism, 29, 35–43; Bin Laden, Usama, 221n73; bridge analogy (US-EU), 1, 58, 206, 208; Butler Committee, 192, 202; Campbell, Alastair, 65; Chechnya, 180–1; Christian socialism, 26; climate change, 159–62; defence, 122, 236n18; DFID, 87, 141, 144–5; ESDP, 58, 59, 61; Europe, 58, 102, 109; free trade, 101, 104, 109, 111; globalisation, 27, 99, 108, 111, 114, 141; Guthrie, Gen. Charles, 122, 235n12; humanitarian intervention, 10, 24, 25, 83, 143, 163, 164–5, 166, 170, 173, 175, 187; India, 139; international law, 175; Iraq, 169, 170, 181, 185–7, 188, 191, 193–5, 196, 197, 201, 202, 250n55, 251n70, 252n89; Kosovo, 27, 61, 63–5, 68, 69, 168, 224n38; Labour Party, 19; Lisbon process, 102; Middle East peace process, 205; multilateralism, 28–9, 69; NATO, 63–5, 72, 128, 227n76; nuclear weapons, 133–4, 139; shuttle diplomacy, 49, 168; Sierra Leone, 82, 229n33; South Africa, 86–7; special relationship (US–UK), 35–43, 72–3, 75, 169, 194, 205; third way, 101, 110–11, 209; UN, 25, 193, 194, 201, 202; WMD, 192,

194–5, 251n70, 252n89; world poverty, 147 Blunkett, David, 44 Bluth, Christoph, 196, 199 BMATT (British Military Advisory and Training Team), 80 Bolton, John, 43 Bono, 151 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 56, 61, 62, 63, 67, 73, 157, 172, 176, 211, 222n95, 224n38, 227n87, 235n8, 247n59 Botswana, 89, 145, 228n8 Boucher, Richard, 227n83 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 190; see also UN: Secretary General Boyce, Admiral, 126 Brahimi, Lakhdar, 53, 177, 222n93 Braithwaite, Rodric, 37 Brammer, Lord, 203 Brazil, 116, 225n42 Bremer, Paul, 201 Breslin, Shaun, 117–18 British American Tobacco, 90 British Medical Association, 151 British Petroleum, 86, 89 Brown, Chris, 29 Brown, Gordon, 87, 90, 94, 106, 114, 151–2, 236n18 BTI (British Trade International), 116, 234n60; see also UK Trade and Investment Bulgaria, 248n3 Bull, Hedley, 166 Burkina Faso, 230n64 Burns, Nicholas, 72 Burundi, 79, 80, 86, 88, 171, 172 Bush, George W., 23, 30, 35–6, 37, 40, 42–3, 44, 45, 48, 49, 53, 55, 58, 72, 73, 75, 78, 132, 133, 161, 162, 185, 194, 195, 205, 206, 208, 210, 212, 219n33, 224n22; see also Bush doctrine Bush doctrine, 36, 45, 55, 208; see also Bush, George W.; US Butler, Richard, 188 Butler Report, 42, 192, 195, 202 Byers, Michael, 51, 175, 199, 200, 251n75

Index 255 Cabinet Committee on International Terrorism, 48 Cabinet Office, 48 Cafod, 151 Callaghan, James, 2 Cambodia, 183 Cameroon, 90, 91 Campaign Against the Arms Trade, 86; see also arms exports Campbell, Alastair, 65 Campbell, Menzies, 196, 245n25 Canada, 37, 41, 158 Carlsnaes, Walter, 4 CBBC (China-Britain Business Council), 117 CDC (Commonwealth Development Corporation), 89 Ceadel, Martin, 31 Central African Republic, 79, 172 CFSP (EU Common Foreign and Security Policy), 56–7, 71, 72, 78 Chalabi, Ahmad, 201 Chechnya, 4, 10, 170, 171, 178, 179–82, 246n56, 247n59; see also Russian Federation Cheney, Dick, 43, 194, 195, 250n45 Chesterman, Simon, 175 Chile, 154–6 China, People’s Republic of, 9, 22, 26, 64, 66, 101, 115–19, 131, 134, 137, 138, 153, 177, 189, 234n66, 235n71 Chirac, Jacques, 73, 92, 193, 227n79 Christian Aid, 151 Churchill, Winston, 2, 24 CJTF (NATO’s Combined Joint Task Forces), 128, 223n6 Clapham, Christopher, 77, 78, 94, 95 Clarke, Charles, 44 Clarke, Michael, 130–1 climate change, 10, 17, 143, 159–62; see also Kyoto Protocol Clinton, Bill, 30, 35–6, 37–40, 42, 55, 58, 64, 68, 72, 75, 78, 110, 114, 133, 152, 187, 218n16, 238n55 Cohen, William, 224n22, 226n64 Cold War, 2, 35, 39, 57, 68, 69, 76, 77, 79, 108, 109, 124, 131, 132, 177, 180 Coles, John, 20, 31, 215n12

Colombia, 170, 182, 248n3 commercial diplomacy, 9, 22, 100–101, 115–19, 209, 211 Commission for Africa, 9, 75, 95 Commonwealth, 2, 16, 78, 89, 92, 101, 111, 144, 151, 165, 178, 207, 228n1 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 130 Confederation of British Industry, 116 Conflict Prevention Pools, 79, 85, 148, 229n21, 229n44 Congo, Republic of, 89, 92, 172 Conservative Party, 1, 4, 9, 16–17, 18, 19, 38, 39, 54, 61, 65, 76, 82, 84, 86, 91, 99, 120, 121, 122, 123, 130, 133, 140, 144, 145, 146, 149, 161, 167, 188, 229n33 Convention against Torture, 155, 179 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, 179–80 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 17 Convention on the Rights of the Child, 191 Cook, Robin, 1, 5, 17–20, 31, 80, 82, 91, 135, 136, 144, 154, 171, 173, 196, 209, 215n12, 239n89, 245n25 Cortright, David, 191 Côte d’Ivoire, 71, 79, 80, 84, 88, 90, 92, 172 Cooper, Neil, 138, 140, 182 Cooper, Robert, 25, 50, 59, 215n17 Corbyn, Jeremy, 65 Council of Europe, 181 CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq), 201–2 Cradock, Percy, 42 Crawford, James, 198 crimes against humanity, 4, 17, 31, 154, 156, 163, 173, 177 Critical Theory, 6 Croatia, 67, 136 Croft, Stuart, 236n17 Currie, David, 109 Curtis, Mark, 3–4, 99, 135, 148–9, 171, 180–1, 212, 214n23 Cyprus, 165, 172, 176 Czech Republic, 127, 248n3

256 Index Dagestan, 179–80 Dalyell, Tam, 65 Darfur, Sudan, 81–2, 173–4; see also Sudan debt relief, 2, 10, 30, 31, 75, 78, 87, 90, 93, 94, 95, 143, 148, 150–3, 162–3, 170, 182, 209, 211, 241n43, 242n48 Defence Committee, 122, 124, 131, 134 defence diplomacy, 81, 123 Denmark, 238n60, 248n3 Department of Education, 148 Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 161 Department of Health, 148 DESO (Defence Export Services Organisation), 239n85 de Villepin, Dominique, 218n7 DFID (Department for International Development), 1, 9, 75, 79, 81, 84, 85–6, 87–8, 100, 141, 143, 144–50, 153, 207, 211, 240n13, 241n22; see also aid, overseas diamonds, 79–80, 82, 84, 165, 170, 182–3 Diego Garcia, 4, 50 Dobson, Alan, 38–9 Dos Santos, Jose Eduardo, 82, 228n8 Dowden, Richard, 91 Doyle, Michael, 167 DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), 10, 56, 73, 79, 80, 81, 86, 92–3, 145, 164, 165, 166, 169, 172, 173, 178–9, 182, 209, 228n18, 230n55, 243n70, 252n2 DTI (Department for Trade and Industry), 100, 104, 111, 116, 146, 148 East Timor, 26, 139, 164, 166, 169, 171, 172, 173, 209, 211–12; see also Indonesia ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), Monitoring Group, 83 El Salvador, 248n3 English Court of Appeal, 52 English School of International Relations theory, 6

Environmental Audit Committee, 113 Equatorial Guinea, 91, 228n8 Eritrea, 91, 153, 248n3 ESDI (NATO’s European Security and Defence Identity), 57, 60, 223n6 ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy, EU), 8, 56–74, 178, 205, 223n2, 224n22 Estonia, 248n3 ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom), 204 Ethiopia, 80, 88, 90, 153, 230n55, 248n3 ethnic cleansing, 63–4, 67, 74, 165 EU (European Union), 5, 8, 16, 20, 22, 25, 29, 41, 42, 46, 55, 56–74, 80, 82, 92, 100, 101, 109, 113, 118, 128, 129, 137, 140, 158, 160, 161–2, 165, 178, 182, 204, 205, 208, 210, 226n70, 227n75, 252n2 EUFOR, 56 Eurofighter, 124, 138 EURRF (EU Rapid Reaction Force), 70, 129, 227n75 Export Credits Guarantee Department, 148 FAC (Foreign Affairs Committee), 54, 55, 66, 133, 181, 183, 204, 205, 247n74 failed states, 22, 71, 79, 169, 170 FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), 1, 15, 17–20, 21, 30, 48, 50, 54, 59, 79, 82, 85–6, 100, 116, 124, 127, 135, 144, 145, 148, 180, 182, 190, 205, 222n91, 225n52, 234n60 Finland, 72 Foot, Rosemary, 118 France, 42, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 71–3, 74, 78, 80, 81, 92, 112, 128, 129, 130, 131, 137, 154, 157, 159, 166, 178, 186, 193, 200, 206, 208, 222n89, 223n6, 223n10; see also Saint Malo declaration Franks, Gen. Tommy, 222n87 Friends of the Earth, 161 Freedman, Sir Lawrence, 47, 61, 169, 196, 244n2 Fulford, Justice Adrian, 156

Index 257 G-7 (Group of 7 Industrialised Nations), 22, 78, 90, 109, 151 G-8 (Group of 8 Industrialised Nations), 22, 29, 75, 78, 88, 93–4, 95, 151, 152, 181 Gabon, 91, 92, 225n42, 228n8 Galloway, George, 65 Gambia, 225n42 gateway economies, 89–90, 100 Geldoff, Sir Bob, 95, 151 Geneva Conventions, 48, 52, 179, 185, 191, see also war crimes genocide, 17, 25, 31, 154, 156, 163, 164, 173, 174, 175, 245n27 Georgia, 180, 248n3 Germany, 58, 62, 71, 72, 109, 129, 131, 151, 160, 176, 186, 203, 206, 223n10, 229n24, 239n91 Ghana, 80, 87, 89, 90, 145, 228n3, 230n55, 231n79 Giddens, Anthony, 110 Gilbert, Lord, 122 Global Climate Coalition, 162 globalisation, 2, 9, 26–8, 99, 101, 103, 104, 105–10, 111, 112, 113, 119, 124, 146, 147–8, 164, 169, 170–1, 209; see also interdependence Global Witness, 183 Goldsmith, Lord QC (Attorney-General), 197–200, 201, 250n46, 250n63 Gonzalez, Felipe, 226n70 Goulty, Alan, 81 Greece, 65, 73 Green Party, 161 Greenspan, Alan, 106 Greenstock, Sir Jeremy, 193, 199, 202 Greenwood, Christopher, 250n63 groupthink, 42, 168, 186 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 40, 50, 52, 221n83 Guinea, 84, 177 Guinness, 90 Guthrie, Gen. Charles, 66–7, 122, 235n12 Halliday, Fred, 156 Hain, Peter, 20, 82 Hay, Colin, 5–7, 102, 105, 106–7, 166

Herring, Eric, 249n32 Hewitt, Adrian, 146 High Court, 46, 155 High Level Panel, of the UN Secretary-General on Threats, Challenges and Change, 170 Hill, Christopher, 4 HIPC (World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative), 90, 150–3, 182, 209, 211, 242n48 Hirst, Paul, 109 HIV/AIDS, 139, 141, 142 Hodder-Williams, Richard, 37–8, 39 Hoffman, Lord, 155 Holmes, John, 135 Hong Kong, 111, 117, 166; see also China, People’s Republic of Hoon, Geoff, 21, 53, 54, 120, 124, 126, 131, 133–4, 139–40, 221n68, 221n77 House of Commons, 44, 65, 113, 122, 124, 135, 191, 194 House of Lords, 46, 155 Howorth, Jolyon, 59 HSBC Bank, 203 humanitarian intervention, 10, 25–6, 62–9, 83, 167, 169, 171–6, 187, 193, 221n72, 225n52 Human Rights Watch, 46, 181, 246n56 Hungary, 127, 248n3 Hurd, Douglas, 2, 120 Hutton, Will, 108–9, 152 ICC (International Criminal Court), 10, 39, 40, 55, 143, 154–8, 163, 165, 176, 182, 208, 211, 212 ICI, 86 ICISS (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty), 173; see also humanitarian intervention ICJ (International Court of Justice), 131 IICK (Independent International Commission on Kosovo), 66, 175 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 90, 100, 114, 149, 150–3, 208 India, 22, 66, 71, 116, 131, 134, 139, 153, 157, 212

258 Index Indonesia, 4, 20, 135, 137–8, 153, 172; see also East Timor Ingushetia, 180 innenpolitik, 5 intelligence services, 37–8, 40–2, 46, 48, 50, 55, 60, 70, 83, 116, 201, 203, 226n57, 237n30 interdependence, 3, 6, 9, 17, 27–8, 29, 101, 105, 108, 109, 124, 143, 169, 170, 209; see also globalisation International Alert, 92 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 179 International Crisis Group, 222n93 International Development Committee, 81–2 international finance facility, 147 international humanitarian law, 49, 68, 85, 154, 191 international law, 3, 24, 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 66, 131, 155, 156, 157, 172, 173–4, 175, 182, 185, 198, 200, 219n42, 242n59, 249n25, 250n63, 251n75 international society, 6, 28, 143 Invest UK, 116; see also UK Trade and Investment Iran, 131, 136, 191 Iraq, 4, 9, 10, 20, 23, 25, 26, 29, 39, 40–1, 42, 43, 55, 56, 57, 69, 72–4, 108, 110, 128, 129, 131, 134, 145, 164–5, 166, 168, 169, 170, 172, 175, 176, 178, 183–4, 185–206, 209, 212, 219n33, 248n11, 249nn32–3, 250n55, 251n70, 252n89, 252n92 ISAF (International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan), 52–5, 166, 172, 176, 222n85, 222n87, 222nn95–6, 229n24; see also Afghanistan; Operation Enduring Freedom Isenberg, David, 184 Islam, 22, 23, 41, 43, 46, 48, 179, 207, 220n58 Israel, 37, 40, 71, 128, 131, 167, 194, 204–5, 208, 211 Italy, 62, 65, 129, 131, 227n79, 248n3 Jackson, Gen. Michael, 64, 229n28 Japan, 22, 37, 116, 151, 152, 176, 189, 203, 248n3

JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee), 37, 41, 42, 197, 203 Jingsheng, Wei, 119 Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, 41 Jubilee 2000 Coalition, 90, 150–3, 242n44, 242n48; see also debt relief Judicial Appeals Committee, 155 Kabbah, Ahmed Tejan, 82–3, 85, 169 Kagame, Paul, 92 Kaldor, Mary, 178 Kampfner, John, 54, 167–8 Karzai, Hamid, 53, 222n93 Kennedy, Charles, 196 Kennedy, John F., 38, 143 Kenya, 48, 49, 86, 87, 89, 90, 136, 228n8, 230n55 Khattab, Emir al, 179 Kimberley Process, 182; see also diamonds KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), 62, 68; see also Kosovo Kosovo, 4, 8, 25, 26, 28, 29, 39, 42, 55, 56, 57, 61, 62–70, 74, 128, 129, 136, 155, 156, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 172, 175, 176, 180, 200, 208, 225n52, 226n64, 235n8, 235n12, 247n59 Kurds, 172, 188, 248n13; see also Iraq; Turkey Kuwait, 138, 191, 197, 198 Kyoto Protocol, 39, 40, 55, 159–62, 163, 211; see also climate change Lander, Sir Stephen, 41 landmines, 16, 39, 40, 54, 136; see also Ottawa Convention Lane, Brigadier Roger, 50 Latvia, 248n3 Lee, Donna, 116, 234n63 Lesotho, 230n55 Liberal Democrats, 65, 127, 161, 188, 245n25 liberal internationalism, 7, 8, 9, 15, 18, 23–4, 26, 28, 31, 36, 79, 102, 117, 143, 150, 167, 169 Liberia, 71, 80, 84, 88, 92, 165, 178, 182, 243n70 Libya, 26, 202, 234n64, 251n88

Index 259 Lithuania, 248n3 Lonrho, 82 Lopez, George A., 191 Lowe, Vaughan, 198 Lustgarten, Laurence, 134 Luxembourg, 72, 160 McColl, Major-Gen. John, 53 Macedonia, 56, 63, 64, 73, 129, 172, 248n3 MacFarlane, Neil, 179, 181 Macmillan, Harold, 2 Madagascar, 91 MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment), 9, 100, 101, 110, 112–13, 119, 209, 211, 233n45 Major, John, 58, 141, 172, 224n25 Malawi, 87, 90, 230n55 Malaysia, 225n42 Mandela, Nelson, 88, 111, 230n61 Manning, David, 75 Marconi, 86, 239n91 Marris, Robert, 153 Mauritania, 230n64 Mauritius, 80, 89, 151 Maxwell, Simon, 149 Mazen, Abu, 205 Mbeki, Thabo, 139 Médecins Sans Frontières, 178 mercantilism, 9, 100, 101, 116, 137, 209, 211 Mexico, 37, 116 Middle East, 4, 29, 41, 125, 128, 138, 167, 185–206, 212; peace process, 10, 40, 186, 203, 204–5 Millennium Development Goals, 90, 93, 94 Millennium Trust Fund, 151–2 Milosevic, Slobodan, 39, 62–5, 67–9, 169, 180, 226n70, 247n59 MOD (Ministry of Defence), 30, 54, 79, 81, 85, 86, 100, 121, 124, 128, 133–4, 137, 139–40, 148, 177, 239n85 Modise, Joe, 230n48 Molucche-Sulawesi, 172; see also Indonesia MONUC (UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo), 80, 178, 246n51

moralism, 7, 8, 15, 28, 31, 36, 57, 69, 79, 121, 166, 171, 187, 207, 209, 210 Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, 204 Morris, Dick, 218n16 Mozambique, 80, 89, 90, 145, 148, 230n55, 230n64 Mugabe, Robert, 78, 80, 86, 91–2, 165, 178, 228n8 multilateralism, 7, 8, 15, 28–9, 37, 40, 57, 69, 71, 74, 78, 93, 101, 111, 118, 121, 144, 150, 159, 160, 166, 171, 177–8, 181, 187, 206, 207, 208–9, 210, 216n43, 217n44 Museveni, Yoweri, 153 Musharraf, Pervez, 49 Mutual Defence Agreement (US–UK), 132, 134, 140, 211, 212 NAC (NATO’s North Atlantic Council), 128; see also NATO Namibia, 64, 82, 89, 153 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), 8, 9, 16, 17, 22, 25, 29, 45, 51, 55, 56–7, 59–74, 121–2, 123, 124, 127–9, 155, 156, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 172, 175, 176, 180, 182, 200, 205–6, 210, 219n44, 223n17, 224n22, 225n52, 226n55, 227n76, 229n24, 247n59; see also NAC; NRF neoliberalism, 7, 8, 9, 15, 28, 30–1, 36, 57, 78, 86, 88–9, 93, 95, 99–119, 121, 122, 137, 140, 144, 147, 152–3, 162, 166, 170, 171, 186, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 232n5; see also Washington consensus NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development), 8, 75, 76, 77, 78, 87, 88, 93–5 Netherlands, 227n79, 229n24, 248n3 network warfare, 127, 236n18 New Zealand, 41 Nicaragua, 248n3 Nigeria, 83, 86, 89, 93, 136, 145, 153, 230n55, 231n79 Northern Ireland, 40, 41, 235n8 North Korea, 131, 132, 133 Norway, 41, 72, 81

260 Index NPT (Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons), 122, 130–4, 212; see also nuclear weapons NRF (NATO Response Force), 71, 128–9, 226n75 nuclear weapons, 9, 37, 38, 39, 44, 50, 121, 122, 130–4, 139, 140, 157, 170, 251n88; see also NPT; US: NMD; Trident

Operation Proxima, 73; see also Macedonia OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), 62, 70, 180, 181, 226n70 Ottawa Convention, 136; see also landmines Overseas Development Institute, 146 Oxfam, 151

ODA (Overseas Development Administration), 17, 144, 145 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), 85, 112, 145, 147, 149, 160, 161, 240n13 oil, 79, 81, 82, 89, 116, 165, 182, 190, 191, 200, 201 Oil for Food Programme, Iraq, 190 Oman, 50, 138 Operation Allied Force, 40, 57, 62–9, 70, 129, 164, 172, 175, 200, 212; see also Kosovo, Serbia Operation Allied Harmony, 129; see also Macedonia Operation Amber Fox, 129; see also Macedonia Operation Artemis, 73, 78, 81, 93, 178–9; see also DRC Operation Barras, 84; see also Sierra Leone Operation Concordia, 73, 129; see also Macedonia Operation Deliberate Force, 63, 67; see also Bosnia and Herzegovina Operation Desert Fox, 10, 40, 72, 166, 172, 186, 188–90, 198, 199, 200, 212, 235n12; see also Iraq Operation Desert Storm, 51, 172, 197; see also Iraq Operation Enduring Freedom, 40, 45, 49–53, 129, 169, 172, 173, 220n63; see also Afghanistan, Taliban Operation Essential Harvest, 129; see also Macedonia Operation Iraqi Freedom, 40, 185–206, 212 Operation Palliser, 83, 166; see also Sierra Leone

Pakistan, 48, 71, 131, 134, 138, 139, 153, 212, 221n65 Palestine, 40, 71, 128, 167, 194, 204–5 Paraguay, 136 Paris Club, 90 peacebuilding, 78, 84–5, 166, 172, 176 peacekeeping, 62, 70, 79, 80–1, 83, 125, 129, 139, 157–8, 163, 165, 172, 176–7, 183, 201 Perle, Richard, 224n22, 250n45 Permanent Joint Council (NATO-Russia), 128 Philippines, 248n3 Phythian, Mark, 135 Pinochet, Gen. Augusto, 10, 143, 154–6, 212 Pogge, Thomas, 142, 149 Poland, 127, 248n3 Polanyi, Karl, 105, 211 Polaris nuclear system, 38, 130, 237n44 poverty reduction strategy programmes, 147, 149; see also DFID POW (prisoner of war), 52 Powell, Colin, 224n22 Powell, Jonathan, 75 Powell, Lord (Charles), 117 pre-emption, 45–6, 219n42; see also self-defence Prescott, John, 139, 159 Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), 46 PSCs (private security companies), 10, 178, 182, 183–4, 247n75 Public Accounts Committee, 140 Putin, Vladimir, 49, 180–2 al-Qa’ida, 46, 47, 49–52, 54, 71, 194, 195, 203, 221n79; see also 9/11 terrorist attacks; Bin Laden, Usama; terrorism; US: war on terror

Index 261 RAF (Royal Air Force), 130, 133, 139 Ralph, Jason, 158 realpolitik, 1, 5, 7, 18, 24, 31, 103, 169, 209 Reich, Robert, 42 Reid, John, 122 Rice, Condoleeza, 224n22 Riddell, Roger, 149 Roberts, Sir Adam, 68, 174–5, 196 Robertson, George, 1, 59, 62, 63, 66, 68, 122, 125, 170, 226n64 Robinson, Mary, 222n93 rogue states, 29, 32, 42, 46, 169, 196 Romania, 127, 248n3 Rowland, Tiny, 82 Royal Navy, 64, 148 RUF (Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone), 80, 82–4, 229n33 Rumsfeld, Donald, 43, 128, 133, 223n10, 224n22, 227n87, 238n57, 250n45 Russian Federation, 22, 40, 48, 62, 64, 66, 68, 114, 127–8, 131, 160, 179–82, 189, 200, 204, 246n56; see also Chechnya; Soviet Union Rwanda, 25, 31, 88, 92, 154, 173, 175, 179, 228n18, 230n55 Saddam Hussein, 10, 168, 169, 170, 176, 185–203, 249n33, 250n55, 251n70 Said, Edward, 204 Saint Malo declaration (3–4 Dec. 1998), 16, 42, 59–61, 71, 92, 224n22; see also ESDP Saint Petersburg declaration (June 1992), 61, 70, 223n3 sanctions, 10, 20, 79–80, 82, 84, 92, 143, 165, 175, 178, 182, 186, 187, 190–2, 195, 196, 201, 220n60, 249nn32–3 Sandline International, 82 Saudi Arabia, 137, 138 Savimbi, Jonas, 82, 178 Sawers, John, 202 Schröeder, Gerhard, 223n9, 227n79 SDR (Strategic Defence Review, 1998), 9, 21, 69, 83, 121, 122–4, 130–1, 138, 177, 236nn17–8

security sector reform, 79, 81, 84, 148 Select Committee on Trade and Industry, 113 self-defence, 45, 49, 50–1, 131, 172, 173, 219n42, 221n74; see also pre-emption self-determination, 57, 81 Senegal, 86, 90, 145, 231n79 Serbia, 62–8, 136, 168, 180, 226n55 SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, NATO), 72 Sharon, Ariel, 205 Shell, 90 Short, Clare, 1, 75, 87, 90, 93, 94, 117, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 151, 153, 162, 220n50, 234n66 Short, Roger, 203 Sierra Leone, 9, 20, 26, 71, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82–5, 86, 92, 135, 148, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 182, 183, 209, 212, 230n55, 231n79; see also RUF Skybolt missiles, 38 Slater, David, 149 Slovakia, 248n3 Slovenia, 127, 225n42 Smith, John, 19 Smith, Nicola J., 106–7 Smith, Steve, 3 Somalia, 79, 88, 172 South Africa, 86–7, 89–90, 92, 93, 138–9, 153, 179, 182, 212, 228n3, 228n18, 230n48, 230n55 Southern African Development Community, 92 South Korea, 248n3 sovereignty, 24, 57, 165, 167, 173, 184 Soviet Union, 39, 41, 132, see also Russian Federation Spain, 154–5, 204, 227n79, 248n3, 251n83 special relationship, US–UK, 8, 29, 36, 37–43, 55, 121, 127, 206, 208 SPLM/A (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army), 81 Standard Chartered Bank, 86, 90 START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks), 130 Stiglitz, Joseph, 110

262 Index Strange, Susan, 115 Straw, Jack, 21, 43, 53, 139, 144, 155–6, 183, 196, 203, 221n74 Sudan, 48, 79, 80, 81–2, 85, 136, 165, 167, 170, 173–4, 182, 229n28, 230n55; janjaweed, 81 Swaziland, 91 Sweden, 72, 160, 230n48 Switzerland, 41, 111, 154 Taiwan, 118 Taliban, 49–55, 71, 165, 169, 178, 220n60, 221n79; see also Afghanistan; Bin Laden, Usama; al-Qa’ida Tanzania, 49, 87, 145, 230n55, 230n64 Taylor, Charles, 71, 80, 84, 92, 165, 178 Tearfund, 151 Tebbit, Sir Kevin, 140 Tenghui, Lee, 118 Territorial Army, 123–4 terrorism, 1, 21, 22, 41–2, 46, 48, 79, 81, 108, 123, 124, 128, 129, 170, 175, 180, 193, 195, 196, 203–4, 207, 210, 221n77, 236n18; see also 9/11 terrorist attacks; US: war on terror Terrorism Financing Convention, 46 Thatcher, Margaret, 30, 58, 110, 237n42 Thatcherism, 103 third way, 2, 9, 30, 39, 86, 87, 101, 105–10, 115, 119, 209; see also neoliberalism; Washington consensus Thompson, Grahame, 109 Tobin tax, 115 transnational crime, 22, 28, 73, 123, 141, 170, 180 Treasury, HM, 30, 85, 99, 121, 123, 147, 148, 151 Trident, 16, 124, 130–2, 140, 237n42, 237n44; see also nuclear weapons Tripp, Charles, 202 Turkey, 53, 73, 138, 172, 188, 206, 222n85, 229n24, 248n3 Turkmenistan, 138

Uganda, 80, 86, 87, 88, 90, 151, 153, 170, 178–9, 228n18, 230n55, 230n64 UK Trade and Investment, 26, 86, 89, 116, 234n60; see also BTI UK Trade Partners, 116; see also UK Trade and Investment UN (United Nations), 4, 16, 17, 20, 22, 25, 29, 44, 51, 53, 64, 66, 70, 72, 78, 80–1, 82, 83–4, 92, 128, 129, 138, 146, 153, 157–8, 162, 163, 165, 169, 172–3, 174, 176–7, 186–7, 204, 210; Conference on Development (1995), 145; Development Programme, 94, 162, 211; General Assembly, 154, 158, 194; Secretary General, 188, 190, 249n25; Security Council, 25, 29, 39, 44, 46, 50–1, 53, 64, 66, 68, 69, 73, 81, 156–8, 164, 165, 168, 172, 174, 176, 177, 178, 180, 182, 185–7, 185–202, 208, 210, 219n41, 220n60, 221n73, 245n27, 250n46; Uniting for Peace procedure, 66 UNAMSIL (UN Mission in Sierra Leone), 80, 83–4 UNCHR (UN Commission on Human Rights), 119, 181 UN Convention Against Corruption, 95 UNESCO (UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), 144, 146 UNFICYP (UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus), 176–7 UN Framework Convention against Climate Change, 161; see also climate change; Kyoto Protocol Unilever, 86 Unison, 151 UNITA (National Union for Total Independence of Angola), 82, 178 UNMIBH (UN Mission in BosniaHerzegovina), 157–8, 176 UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, Iraq), 187 UNSCOM (UN Special Commission, Iraq), 187–8

Index 263 US (United States), 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 28, 69–70, 144, 210; 9/11 terrorist attacks, 1; ABM Treaty, 132, 134; Afghanistan, 8, 49–55, 221n65, 221n79, 222n87, 227n89; arms exports, 137–8, 212; Bosnia and Herzegovina, 227n87; Central Intelligence Agency, 49; China, 137; climate change, 161, 163; Congress, 65, 152; debt relief, 152, 211; Democratic Party, 35, 38–9, 40, 42, 58, 110, 207; embassies, 49; ESDI, 223n6; Europe, 1, 2, 58, 128, 206, 208, 223n10; Federal Reserve, 106; global economy, 101; ICC, 157–8, 176, 243n70; Iraq, 108, 183, 185–7, 189, 191, 193–4, 196, 200, 202, 206, 218n26, 248n11; isolationism, 57; Kosovo, 62, 64, 226n55; MAI, 112–13; Middle East, 204–5; Mutual Defence Agreement (US–UK), 132, 134, 140, 211, 212; National Intelligence Estimates, 238n57; NATO, 59, 62, 65, 72, 74, 122, 127, 128, 129; NMD, 40, 130–3, 140, 238n57, 238n63; peacekeeping, 80, 157–8, 176; Pentagon, 54, 193, 194, 197, 201; Republican Party, 40, 43, 55, 207, 208; special relationship (US–UK), 8, 22–3, 29–30, 35–48, 57, 73, 78, 101, 108, 109, 120, 121, 132, 166, 201, 207–8; Sierra Leone, 82, 84–5; State Department, 54, 62, 227n83, 248n3; Sudan, 81, 174; USS Cole, 49; war on terror, 43–8, 94, 120, 180; see also Bush, George W.; Bush doctrine; Clinton, Bill Uzbekistan, 48, 138, 248n3

war crimes, 17, 31, 68, 154, 156, 157, 163; see also Geneva Conventions ‘War on terrorism’, 8, 36, 43–8, 55, 71, 94, 227n79 Washington consensus, 30, 101, 106, 110, 119, 153; see also globalisation; neoliberalism Watson, Matthew, 105, 114–15 Watts, Sir Arthur, 251n75 Weller, Marc, 156, 189, 242n59 WEU (Western European Union), 57, 59, 60, 223n3 Wickham-Jones, Mark, 19 Wilkinson, Rorden, 113, 232n5 Williams, Natalie, 113, 233n45 Wilson, Harold, 144 WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), 21, 22, 44, 46, 105, 108, 124, 128, 129, 130, 134, 170, 187, 188, 191, 192–3, 194–7, 200, 202, 236n18, 250n55, 251n70 Wolfers, Arnold, 182 Wolfowitz, Paul, 43, 250n45 World Bank, 76, 88, 90, 91, 110, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 208; see also HIPC World Development Movement, 151, 152 World Economic Forum, 111 world society, 6, 143, 214n21 World Trade Centre, 43 World Wide Fund for Nature, 113 WTO (World Trade Organisation), 111, 112, 137, 208

van de Walle, Nicolas, 76 Vickers, Rhiannon, 23–4, 26 Vines, David, 109 Voynet, Dominique, 159

Zambia, 86, 90, 228n18, 230n55 Zapatero, José Luis Rodriguez, 204 Zenawi, Meles, 153 Zimbabwe, 78, 80, 86, 91–2, 94, 138, 153, 165, 178, 179, 228n8, 230n55

Wallace, William, 206, 208 Wan, Ming, 118

Yugoslavia, former, 16, 56, 62, 154, 180

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