Syria vote: a disastrous mismatch between politics and military reality

Mishandling of case for air strikes could prove catalyst for debate military wants on UK’s strategic priorities and role in the world

The spectacular mishandling of the case for military strikes against Syria could lead to Britain’s allies questioning its role as a partner in future conflicts, defence sources and independent analysts warned on Friday.

Military chiefs and their political masters would be conducting a “damage limitation exercise”, Michael Clarke, director general of the Royal United Services Institute, suggested. “It should be a blip, a democratic blip,” he said, referring to Thursday night’s Commons vote.

“[But] there is a danger it could become a tipping point where the UK falls into strategic irrelevance in US eyes. We can all be friendly, well-respected, kith and kin etc – like the Dutch – but just not be taken seriously as a strategically significant player in security matters.”

That could have an impact in other parts of Europe where Britain is regarded as something of a bellwether.

Defence sources and independent analysts said that on Syria there had been a disastrous mismatch between incoherent political objectives – driven in the main by moral outrage – and the military means to achieve them.

“There was a real lack of strategic intent in the way the whole thing was set up,” said Clarke. The purpose was to react to a war crime but the Commons was actually reacting to “strategic woolliness”.

General Sir Mike Jackson, a former head of the army, said: “You can’t sort out a military plan unless you know what the political objectives are”.

General Jonathan Shaw, a former director of UK special forces who served in Kosovo and Iraq, drove home the point. “Military tools are ill-suited to achieving political aims. What is the political objective that military action is meant to be enabling? A lack of clarity about the political objectives would seem to have created distrust in Britain’s enthusiasm for action.”

Defence chiefs heard their political masters refer to the need to “deter” and “punish” Syria’s Bahsar al-Assad and his regime, and, as Barack Obama put it, “fire a shot across the bows”. Yet they also knew ministers – and the public – did not have the appetite for deeper military involvement.

A former head of the navy, Lord West, and a former head of the army, Lord Dannatt, reflected widespread criticism within the military and defence circles by pouring scorn on claims by ministers that military strikes did not mean the UK or the US were taking sides in the civil war. “As regards a limited strike, this was always an impossible notion,” said Dannatt. “Any use of explosive ordnance by the west, for whatever purpose, would have committed us to participation in the Syrian civil war irrevocably.”

Analysts believe Syrian forces used chemical weapons, and chemical agents to clear people out of the suburbs, something that is not been done easily with conventional weapons.

Speaking before Thursday night’s vote, Shaw said: “We may say intervention was about chemical weapons but the reality is we will be intervening …read more