Britannia Radio

20 December 2008 12:25 PM

For a Euro-army: first destroy the British army

Napoleon has always been a particular villain of mine, not so much because he was a pan-European butcher -- others have done the same thing -- but because of the way he treated his own troops. He would lead his men into disaster, and then abandon them to get back to Paris: Egypt, Russia, his own soldiers leaderless, without supplies and dying, and Napoleon in a carriage heading home.

Only a swine would treat his men like that, and yet expect them to fight for him again.

Which of course brings us to Gordon Brown.

The prime minister says he is going to shift what is left of the British army in Iraq into Afghanistan. But just look at what is left of the British army. Here is Col Tim Collins, the former commander of the First Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment in southern Iraq, on the Today programme this morning:

The army has become a 'shambles under Labour,' he said. We are fighting  two wars, yet 'since Labour came to power, the army is a shadow of its former self.' The armed forces have gone down from 101,000 in 1997, to under 98,000. In 1997, there were 16 RAF squadrons, there are now just 11. The Royal Navy has is down eight destroyers and six frigates: 'Our navy is now smaller than the French navy.'

'It may well be that we're past the point of no return. I believe that the agenda is to produce a European army, that is what I believe is the objective of many on the left of politics in this country. I believe that they have more or less achieved it.'

But now the prime minister is going to order the men from Britain's neglected, impoverished army -- defence spending has never been as low since the 1930s-- into Islam's own Vietnam, Afghanistan. And he hasn't been able to give any credible reason at all for doing it.

Nobody is going to win that war. There is nothing the British army, nor the American army, nor any of the other NATO armies fighting there, can do to achieve anything that could be called 'victory.' Afghanistan offers nothing except perpetual war. As Pat Buchanan, the American columnist, author and former Reagan speech writer, said this week: 'The commanding general is talking about four years at least and the now-and future war minister' -- Defence Secretary Robert Gates -- 'is talking about four decades.'

'Militarily, the Taliban forces are stronger than they have been since 2001, moving out of the south and east and infesting half the country. They have sanctuaries in Pakistan and virtually ring Kabul.'

'What is there to win in Afghanistan to justify doubling down on our investment? If our vital interest is to deny a sanctuary there to al-Qaida, do we have to build a new Afghanistan to accomplish that? Did al-Qaida not depart years ago for a new sanctuary in Pakistan?'

The president-elect, Barack Obama, is as keen to ratchet up troop numbers as is Gordon Brown. Yet there is no evidence either man has any clue what an army is actually for, or what victory would look like.

There are now 34,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan. Under Obama, the number will rise by 20,000 to 30,000. 'Shades of LBJ, 1964-65,' says Buchanan. 'Afghanistan is going to be Obama's War. And upon its outcome will hang the fate of his presidency. Has he thought this through?'

Clearly not. But then, neither has Gordon Brown.

Although maybe he has: maybe Brown has decided that just a few more years of dropping neglected British troops into an unwinnable war will be the end of anything that could truly be called a British army. And then all that will be left to do is turn over the remnants to a European force.

At which point, the lumpish Brown will equal Napoleon, if not in terms of intelligence or style, certainly in terms of wickedness.