Letter From The MOD – What are the Forces for, and how does the SDSR help achieve this?

Being a public-spirited sort your blogger chose, in the months leading up to the publishing of the SDSR, to take part in the public consultation process that preceded its public release. I have no idea now what I said but it no doubt involved a lot of wittering about sovereign and strategic power-projection, and how this aim was best achieved in the coming years of austerity by a greater emphasis on naval and expeditionary forces. The reply arrived last month.

What are the Armed Forces for, and how is the SDSR supposed to help them achieve this end?

Opportunity or threat #5 – Has Cameron succeeded or failed?

Reading Aaron Ellis’s thoughts on the unexpected “no” from Cameron on Friday – as well as the mournings and musings of various others – has prompted me to pause for thought. HMG has always sought to have British commissioners holding the economic portfolio in Brussels, in order that the economic regulation that emerges has a flavour that is acceptable to the British palate. It is perhaps no coincidence that financial regulation became indigestible once labour abandoned the principle of occupying the economic portfolio at all costs – to get Baroness Ashton into the new foreign policy portfolio – thereby allowing France to install Barnier into our old redoubt. This perhaps explains why Britain is so nervous about the coming tide of financial regulation, when we have not previously been overruled on such matters via QMV, but has Cameron played a blinder or a poor hand badly?

Rather depends on how deluded you are, for there was very little choice available to Cameron.

Question for Nick – When are you going to break the news?

Mr Clegg is a clever chap, and a pragmatic one too, so when it comes to value of our trade with europe I have no doubt he is well aware of the declining importance it plays, if only because Osborne and Alexander will have sat him down for a little chat. However, he is bang in the middle of a gruelling battle to transform his party into something fit to govern the UK, and that requires that he doesn’t yank too hard on the baby-reins. At some point before the next election he will have to instil a more pragmatic form of enthusiasm for the EU that is able to reflect critically on its flaws, not least the damage that the doctrine of ever-deeper-union has done to public acceptance of the wider project. The uncritical europhilia that has been our Lib-Dem diet to date stems largely from the fear that without the shoulders of europe to stand upon the UK’s future is dark for we need europe’s might to keep; the money flowing, the barbarians from the gate, and to temper our anglo-saxon tendencies. Perhaps he needs to show his party this:

In the space of just ten years the value of our trade with europe vis-a-vis the rest of the world has slipped dramatically, and it has done so because europe is now a low-growth zone.

Nokia N9 UK Availability On Contract – It is up to the carriers.

In response to an enterprising fellow on the maemo forums who asked Stephen Elop about N9 availability in the UK, this blog thought it would try and sharpen up the response by sending off another email asking specifically about carrier availability.

Mr Elop very obligingly replied.

Future Army Structure – A call for papers Part 3.

This post is the latest exploration of how one might structure an army for a future guided by the RUSI doctrines; Strategic Raiding, Global Guardian and Contributory, as compared to both the RUSI balanced force from FDR7 and the Future Force 2020 from the SDSR. The analysis is based around what RUSI perceived to be a balanced force structure in the event of a 12-15% cut in Defence spending, which they didn’t advocate per-se, merely putting it out there as a useful indicator of trend reductions. The purpose of the exercise is to show the trend of reductions, using the RUSI balanced force as a baseline that allows us to juggle the numbers further in creating a more asymmetric force structure as they recommend.

So what do we end up with?

Opportunity or threat #4 – Has Sarkozy’s EMF revived Cameron’s EU plans?

The euro crisis rumbles on, with the Greece bail-out 2.0 entrain and still no real solution to the currency union’s problem. In a marked change from a generation of Conservative policy; that we should be at the heart of europe to ensure they don’t make a pigs ear of it, we know have George Osborne arguing for a two-speed EU, with Britain in the slow lane. Welcome aboard George!

Is this the promised land, where British democracy becomes accountable once more?

Meego/Harmattan – A willfully misunderstood platform.

Huzzah! The Nokia N9 has finally arrived in a genuinely consumer-oriented package. Granted, it is not step-five-of-five given the February 11th announcement to abandon Meego as Nokia’s smartphone future, but it is getting rave reviews even from the likes of engadget -  usually the first to take a pop at Nokia’s hubris in pursuing alternatives to Android/Apple. The problem the N9 faces is that in editorials up and down the land there exists the question; why get excited about an abandoned platform sat on an orphaned handset. Fair question, the N9 must persuade on merit that it is a proposition with value. This blog takes no issue with that, what it does wish to raise to prominence is the false meme of disaster that has arisen from people who are too busy hyper-ventilating over an emotional calamity to engage brain and sieve facts.

Having grown bored with pointing out the same facts to the emotionally incontinent, over and over again, here is a FAQ:

Fifth Gradient Warfare – And Fox’s desire to keep DfID a mess.

Defence Secretary Fox is getting his knickers in a twist over the coalition commitment to enshrine in British Law the requirement to spend 0.7% of GNP in official development assistance. This blog is quite certain that he is, and not just because doing so poses the potential for a myriad of legal challenges. Enshrining in law a specific commitment requires a detailed accounting process, that will list achievements against specific criteria, and throw up endless potential to challenge the justification of a given project, requiring detailed and public response in defence of actions taken.

In short, it threatens to make official development assistance comprehensible, succinct, and verifiable.

AV In Flames – A vanity project that will taste of ashes.

This blog is amused by the latest polls for the AV referendum, especially as aggregated by political betting. We have been regaled with tales of dogs and cats, along with wonderful explanations of why it is not a good idea to let representative government to fall to the former. Its all very entertaining but it is a fantastic example of exactly why the “yes” vote is destined to lose; because it panders to the idea of a progressive-majority and ignores the fact that their are multiple ‘dog’ candidates too.

This presumption of ‘virtue’ has prevented the “yes” campaign from communicating with, and persuading, those people for whom the principle of proportionality or ‘vote-power’ simply is not a significant priority.

Compassionate Liberalism & Just Deserts – Escaping the paradox of the left’s social authoritarianism.

The last decade has witnessed Labour testing to destruction of the notion of unalloyed social-liberalism, however the decade we are now within represents an enormous opportunity for the Lib-Dem’s to step outwith the formers shadow, but does Labours failure provide a guide that will lead to the success of the latter? Yes, but it requires recognising that progressivism is a means and not an end.

It also requires a mandate from the people before the party will have the confidence to change.