A Lesson for Teacher

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When you walk into your classroom, pause for a moment and look around.

Those eager young faces are your pension fund.

You see, a pension fund is not some bottomless pot of money created by government magic, it is actual cash that has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is your pupils when they are old enough to get a job. In the meantime, they depend on you for an education.

Except you’re going on strike.

You are disadvantaging the very people who will pay your pension when you retire.

That’s not clever.

I suggest instead of striking you work harder to give them a better education so they can get better jobs and create more wealth for the economy, because it’s how wealthy the economy is that determines how much pension you get.

Right now the economy has tanked and everyone is struggling.

So if you’ve been in education a long time you haven’t done a very good job, have you?

Otherwise we would have a bright, well educated workforce and we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.

But you think going on strike will improve matters.

See me after school.

They are the Falkland Islands, not Islas Malvinas

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Let’s congratulate Argentina on having a peaceful civilian government, pledged to pursue its national objectives by non-military means. But at the same time we must condemn them for wishing to colonise the Falkland Islands and deny the right of self-determination to the settled population, one that has lived there in peace for generations. Argentina does not recognise that the Islanders have any say in their own future, they will only negotiate with the British government. And while they lobby world opinion to pressurise us into entering negotiations over sovereignty, the reality is those negotiations would be a sham. All Argentina wants to hear is a date for a hand-over.

The Falkland Islands have never belonged to Argentina and their claim is based on half-truths and outright lies. Their claim to South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands has even less foundation, while their claim to Southern Thule has no merit at all. However their claim to own part of Antarctica is actually in flagrant disregard of international law. In fact, Argentina has a long history of disregarding international law and the treaties they have signed and they are still breaking them with impunity today. You can read a detailed, highly academic and well researched analysis of the history of the Falkland Islands and a point-by-point rebuttal of Argentina’s claim at www.falklandshistory.org.

The harm that Argentina’s campaign is doing is considerable. They are hampering economic development on the Islands by blockading international air and sea traffic that would otherwise route through Argentina and would be to mutual advantage; they are intimidating legitimate fishing and oil exploration activity that would also be to mutual advantage; and they are undermining friendly relations and trade between Britain and Argentina to the detriment of both sides. On an individual level we all get along very well indeed, but official Argentine government policy is to play the Falkland’s card for political advantage at home, and lie to the rest of the world in pursuit of their aims abroad.

Britain is never going to abandon the Islanders, not after what happened in 1982. If only the Argentines had been a little more patient, we had sold or were about to withdraw key naval assets that would have prevented us liberating the Islands. Had they but waited a couple of months they would still be there now, in occupation and immovable. And that being the case, the Islanders would be gone. Argentina at that time was ruled by a ruthless military Junta, one that slaughtered any of its own people it deemed a nuisance. Thousands of innocent people simply disappeared, and the Falkland Islanders would have disappeared with them. As far as the current Argentine government is concerned, it’s as if they already don’t exist.

The sacrifice of 255 soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and merchant seamen means the Islanders live in freedom today, and everyone who honours their memory will see it stays that way.

And now a word for my American friends. Don’t suck up to Argentina. It’s not big and it’s not right. We stick our necks out every time you need our support, we’re with you through thick and thin however hard it is for us economically these days, and believe me it is hard. Examine Argentina’s claim and be honest with them, they have no claim. You gave us invaluable support in 1982 when we needed it. So stick to your principles, that’s all I’m asking, and don’t let Argentina colonise a freedom-loving people.

And don’t call them the Malvinas.

Whose side are you on? A question for Pakistan

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America has presented hard evidence that the upper echelons of Pakistan’s military is leaking top secret intelligence to al-Qaeda.

It has been an almost open secret for years that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI, and the military have been infiltrated despite strenuous denials from Pakistan. The evidence, carried in person by CIA boss Leon Panetta to Pakistan for a show-down meeting this weekend is damning. The CIA passed surveillance images showing the location of two terrorist bomb making factories to their opposite numbers in Pakistan. The Americans continued to monitor the factories and observed them being evacuated shortly before they were raided by the Pakistani army. Telegraph article: Pakistan accused of tipping off al Qaeda.

Pakistan's army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, right, and Pakistan's intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha met with Mr Panetta on Friday (Photo: AP)

Less than two weeks ago, a Pakistani journalist was tortured and murdered for writing about an al-Qaeda link with Pakistan’s navy. Telegraph article: Journalist murdered. One particular story he wrote about is the alleged involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agency in the Mumbai massacre. According to his information, the original idea had been put to the ISI by Ilyas Kashmiri, a senior commander in al-Qaeda as a way of provoking war with India, but ISI eventually shelved it. The plan was then taken over by Haroon Ashik, a former commander of Lashkar e Taiba, who spiced it up and put it into operation, murdering 166 people in a three day killing spree. It’s not so much a case of the ISI being innocent of involvement in the actual atrocity, if that’s the case, but that they are part of the terrorist network passing the plan amongst themselves. Telegraph article: Mumbai attack.

Do we know whose side Pakistan’s military is on?

We are still seeing the fall-out of trust between America and Pakistan now that we know bin Laden was living under Pakistan’s nose close to their top military academy in Abbottabad. Pakistan has nuclear weapons under the control of the military who are refusing American requests for access. Are we safe? Does ISI cooperation with al Qaeda and Lashkar e Taiba extend to nuclear weapons?

Update 16th June 2011

A really good article in today’s New York Times gives us the answer:  Pakistan’s military are against us.

“Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who has led the army since 2007, faces such intense discontent over what is seen as his cozy relationship with the United States that a colonels’ coup, while unlikely, was not out of the question.”

“…demanding that General Kayani get much tougher with the Americans, even edging toward a break.”

“His goal was to rally support among his rank-and-file troops, who are almost uniformly anti-American.”

“That Bin Laden was living comfortably in Pakistan for years has evinced little outrage here among a population that has consistently told pollsters it is more sympathetic to Al Qaeda than to the United States.”

“…they were gradually “strangling the alliance” by making things difficult for the Americans in Pakistan.”

Seems pretty clear. Now, what about those nuclear weapons?

The man who predicted how the Soviet Union would collapse

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Igor Yakovlevich Birman has died. I’ve never heard of him before, but I wish I had. He was a Russian economist who from first-hand knowledge saw through the lies and propaganda of Soviet might. He emigrated to America in 1974 where his predictions that the Soviet economy would eventually implode were disbelieved and ridiculed by western ‘experts’. As a director of planning in Soviet factories “he had a profound distrust of official Soviet statistics and believed its economy was smaller and could support far less non-military consumption than most foreign analysts believed,” as his obituary in the Telegraph explains it.

The problem was the American military establishment had as much a vested interest in talking-up Soviet capability as the apparatchiks in Moscow had. The appearance of a new Soviet bomber or missile system at the annual May Day Parade threw the Pentagon into a frenzy of lobbying on Capitol Hill for yet more money for yet more military programmes. The arms race was conducted round a tight circular race track; each new Western bomber spurred the Soviets to produce another. The Pentagon could not allow the idea to gain credence that this race was unsustainable for the Soviets, it would undermine their own programmes. Birman knew the truth and he had to be rubbished.

Paradoxically, Birman believed that the best strategy for the West was to ramp up the arms race and bankrupt the Soviet Union. Instead of giving him the cold shoulder, the Pentagon should have championed him.

The first cracks in Soviet confidence came with the Falkland’s War. Soviet spy trawlers were shadowing our fleet as it sailed south and we feared they were passing intelligence to the Argentines. It turns out they were not, but the Russians watched the whole conflict closely, with mounting alarm. And with good reason. Operating at extended range, against an enemy with modern weapons with the advantage of being dug-in and prepared, and operating close to their homeland with short supply lines, we trounced them. All of our weapon systems worked as advertised, the Harrier jump-jet in particular was an outstanding success shooting down 23 enemy aircraft without loss.

The second blow to Soviet confidence was the First Gulf War when NATO forces demonstrated military capabilities that were simply beyond the Soviet’s dreams. From the stealth bombers that opened up the campaign, to the ‘smart bombs’ that had devastating accuracy, and especially to the Tomahawk cruise missiles. Who can ever forget those television images of cruise missiles flying up the street past the Al Rasheed hotel in Baghdad, using SatNav to home in on their targets. Watch it here

This came just two years after the Russians had to retreat from their disastrous campaign in Afghanistan, beaten and demoralised. It was probably the final nail in the coffin. The Soviets realised that no amount of money would bring their military up to sufficient capability as to challenge ours. They had hit the limit; they could spend no more because the Soviet economy could not take it.

So, back to Birman who predicted as much. Why do I wish I had known more of him? Because everything he said about the nature of the Soviet economy applies to us today. How far can we believe and trust those who run the economy? Those who ran the Soviet factories, and the apparatchiks in Moscow, are hardly different to those who run our financial centres on Wall Street and the City of London, and the regulators who oversee them. There is a vested interest in talking up their importance to the economy and how good a job they are doing. But I don’t believe any of it.

What we really need is a return to fundamental capitalism. Pure free trade. We need to get away from the culture of unearned bonuses. If you do a good job you get to keep your job, that should be the reward. We need to return to an economy where wealth creation is the objective. If we don’t create sufficient wealth, then just like the Soviet Union all else fails. We need to make it profitable to employ people in this country, not export jobs. We need to reduce taxation so a higher proportion of what we earn is ours to keep and spend. Above all, like Birman, we should trust what we see first hand, so-called ‘anecdotal economics’ (or as Professor Patrick Minford puts it, ‘rational expectation’) and act on it. Otherwise if we are deluding ourselves as the Soviets did, our economy is at risk of imploding as well.

Igor Birman’s obituary in the Telegraph

At last: something about the Olympics I like

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It’s been a bumpy ride for London 2012. The joy of being chosen as host city for the Summer Olympics was utterly erased by al-Qaeda carrying out the London bombings the next day, killing 52 innocent people in a series of suicide bombings on the London transport network. It’s incredible to think that was six years ago. I think it has had a lasting effect on anything to do with the Olympics with little of the original joy remaining. Now it seems, it is a grim exercise in preparing for the games, calmly and efficiently. Which has been done, I have to say. I’m highly impressed with the state of readiness of the stadia and the infrastructure with a year still to go. A far cry from the shambles that marked the Commonwealth Games preparations in Delhi last year.

But everywhere is that ghastly logo. A genital wart, ugly and disfiguring. Then there was the arrival of China’s Olympic torch from Beijing, escorted by a gang of heavy-handed minders causing pandemonium on the streets of London. And more recently, we have the ticketing fiasco. Possibly a million people turned away empty-handed, including the mayor of London and several gold medal winning Olympians. And not just turned away, but kept in the dark. Even the lucky ones who have been allocated tickets have no idea what tickets they have been sold.

And today the design of the Olympic torch that will be carried around Britain and Ireland has been revealed. I think it is stunning, I love it. Finally someone is displaying the creative flair that this country has such a rich heritage in. A pity it has that awful logo on it, but it doesn’t detract one jot from the beauty of the torch, that’s a measure of how perfect it is.

A close-up of the torch in the centre, with full length pictures at left and right

How to build a ship: The State does it, or Private Enterprise does it

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Way back in 1998, the Ministry of Defence decided it needed new aircraft carriers and announced a competition amongst defence contractors. In 2003, they announced a winner, and in 2007 they signed a contract worth £3.9 billion for two vessels. As of mid-2011 they are expected to cost £5 billion (widely regarded as a gross underestimate) and the first carrier will not enter service until 2020. It will not have any aircraft. When the second carrier is ready for service, the first will be sold or moth-balled. The carriers will be 932 feet long, and will displace 65,600 metric tons.

Five days ago, the US Navy announced the name of a new aircraft carrier it was building, the USS John F Kennedy. Construction had already begun in early 2011 and it is to enter service in 2018. It will be longer (1092 feet) and heavier (101,600 tons displacement) than the Royal Navy carriers, will carry 75 aircraft, and cost an estimated $10.2 billion. The US Navy currently has eleven carriers.

Today, P&O Cruises announced they are to build a new luxury cruise liner. It too will be longer (1082 feet) and substantially heavier (154,407 tons gross) than the Royal Navy carriers, will carry the same number of aircraft as HMS Queen Elizabeth (ie none), will be in service in 2015, and will cost £500 million.

So private enterprise can build a bigger, better ship at a fraction of the price and have it at sea sooner. If we had given P&O the job at the outset we’d have two carriers off Libya right now making a useful contribution to our campaign, and have a lot more money in the coffers.

The Royal Navy's new luxury cruise liner

Boycott FIFA’s sponsors and have a fan-led Soccer Spring

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It’s hard to see that there is anything positive to be found in the fiasco that is FIFA right now. Only the whistle-blowers who went to Chuck Blazer and showed him the $40,000 in cash that Mohamad bin Hammam tried to bribe them with come out with any credit. Jack Warner, who seemed to be acting as facilitator, and bin Hammam were suspended and then Blazer was in turn sacked and reinstated. Sepp Blatter who has for decades presided over a secretive culture of back-room deals sails serenely on, winning a further term of office as president by default because bin Hammam had withdrawn after the bribery scandal hit the world’s media. Even the English Football Association come away looking clueless and out of their depth because all the other delegates rallied round Blatter. Well, of course they’d rally round him, it’s a magnificent gravy train they’re all on and he’s the train driver.

It’s the way they rally round that’s interesting. In each case during the so-called Arab Spring, the despot has a coterie of loyalists who in many cases are more hardline than the despot himself. At some stage there is a tipping point where members of his inner circle desert him, or gather their courage together and tell him he has to go. That happened in Tunisia and Egypt, but it’s not happening yet in Libya, Syria or Yemen. If we substitute brown envelopes stuffed with cash for tanks and bullets, might we have a parallel between FIFA and certain Arab countries? How can Blatter be deposed? Will his coterie turn against him? Can we look forward to a Soccer Spring?

We can, because there is a further element involved: The sponsors. Adidas, Coca-Cola, Emirates, Hyundai-Kia Motors, Sony, and VISA pump many millions of dollars into FIFA and they do it for one reason only: to win favour with the world’s consumers. Withdraw that favour and their money is wasted. Worse, if association with FIFA is seen in a negative light it could even be damaging. Just look how quickly sponsors withdraw from any event that is suddenly a PR disaster. This FIFA fiasco is a PR disaster of major proportions, we just have to let the sponsors know.

One of Our Aircraft is Over-Budget, or, the Modern Ministry of Defence

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Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is a work of genius. His description of the absurdities of petty military bureaucracy are devastatingly accurate and despite the humour, frightening, because anyone who’s been in the forces knows it’s all too real. When you combine it with the Peter Principle that tells us everyone rises to their level of incompetence, we begin to get a picture of what life must be like at the highest levels of the Ministry of Defence.

For most of its time in office, the Labour government appointed ministers of breathtaking incompetence to run the department. They in turn favoured admirals, generals, and air marshals who spoke the same language, that is, when they spoke at all. How else do we explain the shambles that we have today, with front-line troops fighting a hot war while badly equipped and about to bear the brunt of the economic cutbacks? Our military capability is tiny and becoming miniscule.

I would like to imagine how a conversation might have gone between Wing Commander Guy Gibson and whoever his boss was following the successful Dam Buster mission. I say “whoever his boss was” because I’m certain ‘Bomber’ Harris would never have survived in the kind of climate we have in the modern Ministry of Defence.

I think it would have gone something like this:

HQ: Gibson, HQ here, do you hear me, Old Boy? Over.

Gibson: Loud and clear, HQ, over.

HQ: Good show on the dams. Pass on our congratulations to your crew.

Gibson: Thank you Sir, they will appreciate that.

HQ: Now, here’s the thing, Gibson. Now that there are no dams to attack, we’re rather over-manned in the dam-busting role.

Gibson: I see Sir.

HQ: So what we need you to do is find the nearest airfield, and land your plane there.

Gibson: But they’re all enemy-held airfields over here Sir.

HQ: Well that’ll be more mouths for them to feed, eh? Ha ha.

Gibson: But don’t you want us to come back Sir?

HQ: No. Do not come back Gibson, we don’t need you any more.

Gibson: But we could re-train Sir?

HQ: Not on Old Boy, we got rid of training in the last round of cutbacks.

Gibson: There must be something we could do Sir, they might rebuild the dams or something?

HQ: No, we’ve thought about that, they won’t and there’s no point maintaining capabilities we don’t need. There is a war on, you know.

Gibson: But what do I tell my crew?

HQ: Tell them these are difficult times for the economy and we must all share the pain.

Gibson: Can’t we make some economies at HQ instead Sir? Cut back on some of the back office staff?

HQ: Really, Gibson, I’m surprised at you. We at HQ are going to have to work much harder to manage the same number of operations with fewer front-line staff. I myself am having to accept a pay rise to reflect the added responsibility. I don’t want it, but we don’t all get what we want in these situations, Gibson, and don’t you forget it.

Gibson: I’m sorry Sir, I don’t know what came over me.

HQ: So just go ahead and land your plane, and hand yourselves over to the enemy, there’s a good chap.

Gibson: As you wish, Sir.

HQ: And with any luck, you’ll have that plane paid-off by the time the war’s over.

Gibson: Excuse me, Sir?

HQ: Well, we’ll deduct the least amount we can from your wages, but you’ll have to pay for the plane you’re not bringing back.

Gibson: But it’s not my choice not to bring it back, you’ve ordered me not to!

HQ: We can’t make an exception for you, Gibson, or there would be no incentive for the other crews to bring their planes back.

Gibson: They don’t need an incentive to bring their planes back, Sir, they will do anything they can to defend their country.

HQ: Now Gibson, that’s just silly talk. Do you think we at HQ would put in the hours that we do, working until almost gone 5 o’clock, the endless committee meetings – with no biscuits I might add, all those important papers to read, if we weren’t incentivised? Reports don’t just write themselves, you know. Everyone needs incentives.

Gibson: But the Nazis don’t.

HQ: Exactly, do you want us to all end up like them? That’s what this war is all about and that’s why we need incentives.

Gibson: Very well Sir, I’ll crash-land the plane forthwith.

HQ: Good show, Gibson.

Gibson: Thank you, Sir.

HQ: By the way, Gibson.

Gibson: Yes, Sir?

HQ: We’re going to award you a Victoria Cross.

Gibson: That’s very kind of you, Sir.

HQ: It’s the least we can do. I’ll deduct the cost from your salary of course, but would you like it presented by the King?

Gibson: How much extra would that be, Sir?

HQ: Now you’re getting the idea, Gibson.

One Swallow Does Not An [Arab] Spring Make

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Forgive me for injecting a note of realism, but as much as Western leaders seem in thrall to the prospect of democracy sweeping the Arab world, I am filled with dread at what the future holds. There is much heady talk of the benefits of the Arab Spring, from drastically reduced numbers of refugees fleeing repressive regimes, to a welcome boost to global trade as free enterprise takes off across the region, as well as genuine pleasure on behalf of the soon-to-be-liberated masses and the happiness in store for them. If only.

History tells us it will be different. In too many cases, sweeping away a despotic regime has resulted in a long period of turmoil at least, and bitter civil war at worst. The stages are clearly defined: a population lives under the thumb of a ruthless regime; the regime is removed, peacefully or otherwise, with or without external help; then after a brief honeymoon period they descend into factional fighting over the future of their newly liberated country. It is sometimes a long and painful period before peace arrives.

The scars have barely started to heal in the Balkans after Marshal Tito died and Yugoslavia fell apart, giving us the most graphic example of this process from recent times. Within a decade of his demise, we saw vicious intercommunal wars and the spectre of ethnic cleansing, leading to the fracturing of the country into smaller independent states. So bad were the atrocities, there and in Rwanda, that the international community was moved to establish a criminal court to pursue justice for those who suffered. (Update: Ratko Mladic, accused of orchestrating the Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre, has just been arrested. Daily Telegraph, May 26, 2011)

We saw the same pattern in Iraq. Bush and Blair led us into war to remove Saddam Hussein and liberate the Iraqi people. Once liberated, Iraq descended into bitter sectarian conflict stoked by al-Qaeda and Iran. Only now is a truly democratic government beginning to take shape, after countless billions of US dollars expended, thousands of US and allied lives lost, and untold thousands of civilian deaths. Bush was blamed for not having a post-Saddam strategy, we must not make the same mistake again.

But it looks like we are making the same mistake again.

The Egyptian people threw President Mubarek out of office in an amazingly peaceful revolution, however, the cracks are already showing and sectarian violence is rearing its head. What can the West do to prevent an all-out civil war? We already have a particularly bloody civil war taking place in Libya where Colonel Gaddafi is clinging to power by turning his heavily-armed army against what at first was an unarmed civilian population. Charges of war crimes have been filed against him at the International Criminal Court, as they have also against President Assad of Syria who has turned his security forces against his own population. Similar upheavals are taking place elsewhere, in Yemen, and in Iran where the Green Revolution was ruthlessly crushed. Some of the Gulf states too are simmering with discontent.

When you look across the region as a whole, calling it an “Arab Spring” is perhaps naive.

Instead of patronising words, the West needs a strategy for helping the Arab world transition from dictatorship to democracy and fending off those forces that would destabilise it. In other words, we need a Marshall Plan for the Arab world. We need clear goals, and a clear process for achieving those goals.

What we don’t need is to clumsily stitch this together with the Israeli/Palestinian problem and I believe that President Obama is seriously mistaken in trying to do that. The problem, the imperative and the solution are entirely different. Leaving aside Gaza which has its own added complications, both sides already have functioning democracies; both sides are – off and on – engaging in peaceful discussion; neither side is ruled by a dictatorship. The occasional outbreaks of violence are triggered more by outside agents and causes than from within the two sides. Any updated Marshall Plan for the Arab world which aims to facilitate peaceful change, promote democracy and encourage free enterprise is not going to be relevant to Israel and the Palestinians, and including them will simply complicate the matter and alienate the rest of the Middle East.

Sack no Soldiers; Sack no Coppers; Sack no Nurses

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I wish I had their confidence. The government is so convinced there could be no Mumbai-style attack in Britain they are cutting back on every resource we might need to deal with it. And as Liam Fox, Defence Secretary, told a Chatham House conference yesterday, there is more to come. He is right to say, “Tackling the crisis in the public finances is not just an issue of economics but an issue of national security too,” but as I asked in a post last year, “Should economic reality trump military necessity?” After all, we either spend the money and defend ourselves adequately, or we have no need for budgets for anything. This is a matter of survival, plain and simple.

Al-Qaeda could continue to target London, or they might do what the IRA did and seek out softer targets where they can stage what they also now call a “spectacular” with a higher percentage of success. In other words, an attack could happen anywhere in the country and we need the resources to cope with it throughout the country. But what are we doing instead?

Defence:
Reducing front-line capabilities, but not tackling top-heavy administration.

Police:
Reducing front-line capabilities, but not tackling top-heavy administration.

NHS:
Reducing front-line capabilities, but not tackling top-heavy administration.

As Rolf Harris used to say, “Can you see anything yet?” Is there a pattern emerging? Yes there is. Soldiers, policemen and nurses are bearing the brunt of the cut-backs, but not the generals, police chiefs and hospital administrators. Yet in a Mumbai-style attack, the police will be the first on the scene, large numbers of casualties will need to be taken to hospitals, and ultimately the army will need to be called in to assist as even a small number of armed terrorists rampaging through a city would be beyond the resources of any local police force. The police and medical services would still be stretched even if the attack was a series of coordinated bombings across a city. I ought to acknowledge that the fire service also has a vital role to play in these scenarios.

The government needs to focus attention on making the cuts where they are most warranted – at the highest levels, and not where they are most damaging – at the front line.