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Creating barriers to justice

The Overseas Operations Bill is going into its third reading in the House of Commons this week. Though much of the criticism of these far-reaching proposals has surfaced only as the Bill was first debated in Parliament in September, it has since been vociferous.

The committee charged with scrutinizing the bill has heard evidence from military, legal and charitable sectors and received written evidence from a range of others. Despite expert analysis on the fundamental flaws of the proposals, even from natural allies, the Tory majority committee, whose members include the Minister responsible for the bill, did not put forward any amendments.

Contrast this with the damning words last week from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, led by Labour MP and QC Harriet Harmen, who also called for evidence as part of their routine legislative scrutiny process. Their report (see notes) strongly challenges the purpose of the legislation, and its detail and potential consequences: “The Bill does nothing to address the issue of inadequate, repeated investigations and instead risks breaching human rights obligations by introducing further barriers to providing justice for victims and preventing prosecutions for serious offences such as torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”

These divergent conclusions are indicative of the divisive nature of this legislation.… Read more

The Overseas Operations Bill: A Tale Of Two Militarisms?

The Overseas Operations Bill, which will be introduced to Parliament in September, has finally become a cause of contention between the major political parties. For a number of years the Conservatives had dominated the terrain upon which the legislation and the issues it is meant to address has been debated. Plans to introduce a presumption against guilt in any claims of wartime criminality more than five years old also became 2019 Conservative Manifesto pledge.

ForcesWatch examined myths and realities of these “legacy” allegations, which pertain to the conduct of personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, in a piece which can be read here. It was then-Prime Minister Theresa May who most clearly framed her party’s position, telling the 2016 party conference in an explicitly populist tone: ‘We will never again in any future conflict let those activist left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave, the men and women of our armed forces.’

The bill has been championed by every Tory prime minister since 2010 and framed by a number of key figures in the party – prominently, army officer-turned-veterans affairs minister Johnny Mercer – as a patriotic defence of UK military personnel and veterans from so-called “vexatious claims”.… Read more

The UK military admits it has a racism problem, but can it be decolonised?

This June an unusual admission emerged from the highest levels of the UK military: Both the head of the military and the Defence Secretary conceded that there is a racism problem in their organisations, and, in the case of the minister, Ben Wallace, that the response had been “woeful”. By July, during an appearance before the Defence Select committee, General Carter appeared to have back-pedalled slightly, framing prejudice in the military as an issue of ‘laddish culture’.

Wallace contributed an article to the Telegraph in which the disparity between woke optics and colonial apologia was writ large. Titled “Increasing diversity is crucial for the future of Britain’s Armed Forces”, yet opening with a reference to the “21 valiant Sikhs taking on 10,000 tribesmen at the Battle of Saragarhi at the end of the 19th century”, the piece seemed to capture the contradictions of reconciling modern military identity with colonial history.

The piece seemed to capture the contradictions of reconciling modern military identity with colonial history.

It seems clear that the military’s statements on diversity are partly, perhaps entirely, about optics and the question of how military institutions wish to be perceived by public opinion. But it is also an unusually frank response.… Read more

High ideals: VE Day, Covid and an anti-militarist future

The 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, better known as VE Day, falls on Friday. It commemorates the acceptance by the Allies, on 8 May 1945, of the Nazi surrender and the bringing to a close of a global total war which cost somewhere between 70 and 85 million lives.

The anniversary falls at a strange moment. Official events had been planned around the UK to mark the event, replete with a now-familiar patriotic tone, will not now occur due to the crisis. Yet Covid, particularly the state response to the pandemic, is perhaps itself being militarised with endless sepia-toned comparisons to the Second World War and the phenomenon of Captain Tom Moore, whose efforts to fundraise for the NHS appear to have been quickly captured by the defence establishment,

Yet as people around the world consider what the post-Covid world might look like, the unexpected collision of these two historic moments is a good time to reflect on the ideas and hopes that emerged in the wake of the Second World War, the degree to which these were realised and how they have endured or been chipped away in the intervening seven and a half decades.

Any serious vision for a post-pandemic world should build upon the same ideals which animated people to push for a more just, safer, healthier and more peaceful world after 1945.… Read more

Militarising the crisis?

The military continues to render aid to civil authorities as part of the Covid Support Force. Early in that process we pulled together a short analysis of what the military were doing, and the Ministry of Defence provide a regularly updated summary of their contribution to the coronavirus response.

More recently however, we have observed that the military seem to be utilising opportunities provided by the crisis for promoting the armed forces and the ‘defence’ sector. At the same time, the crisis has helped create the possibility of a global ceasefire and fast-forwarded debate about what human, rather than state, security actually looks like.

Recruiting opportunities

We are concerned that the military may see the Covid-19 crisis as a chance to recruit. This seems to be happening at a number of levels. For example, the head of the Royal Marines, individual infantry regiments and serving Ministry of Defence ministers have all linked the pandemic with calls for people to join/re-join. The ethical implications of this should be obvious, not least at a time when many people are concerned about their jobs and about a potential recession.

The language of war

It is hard not to notice how the embedding of military language in the political and media vocabulary, which has taken place over the last 20 years of the War on Terror, has also become commonplace in discussion of the crisis.… Read more

Covid-19 and the UK Military

Given the emerging crisis and its implications for public services which are already severely strained after ten years of austerity, it seemed very likely from the outset that if the Covid-19 pandemic reached Britain it would require state intervention, including by the military. ForcesWatch is monitoring the military’s activities during the pandemic. These activities will come under a number of military ‘operations’, which are worth explaining for the sake of clarity.

Operation Rescript

Rescript is the operational name for domestic military anti-Covid operations which include the placing on standby of thousands of troops, the use of military personnel to deliver oxygen and other equipment, and the embedding of forces medics in the UK health system.

Operation Broadshare

Broadshare is the operational name for international military anti-Covid operations such as the rescue of UK nationals and relief operations outside the UK.

Military Aid to Civil Authority (MACA)

This is the broad term for military resources being reallocated by the state to support civilian aims. We have seen this carried out as part of the state responses to flooding, the fire strikes and, now, the pandemic. If you can get past the Ministry of Defence gloss, the department’s Medium blogging page contains useful breakdowns of what different parts of the military (air support, logistics, medical) might end up doing to support the state response. … Read more

Army dreaming

At the risk of becoming repetitive, the Army have once again launched a new-year advertising campaign with a ‘controversial’ edge and much media coverage.

A narrative advert forms the centrepiece of the campaign, with additional shorter ads showing moments of Army life, and a series of eye-catching posters. This is only the latest of the expensive, highly stratified and sophisticated marketing campaigns that the armed forces regularly put out. They use extensive research and top ‘creative’ companies to target key audiences, not only to enlist new recruits but also to generate wider social debate and public awareness about the military. Karmarama, the agency behind the Army’s marketing in recent years, talks of a strategy to create a ‘shift in perceptions’ about an Army career but also to result in ‘people reappraising the Army generally’.(1)

Pushing out a provocative campaign on a slow news day to coincide with the January blues and new year’s resolutions, helps to gain traction. The campaign particularly targets audiences from low-income households and areas with higher levels of deprivation. It utilises a wealth of broadcast, social media and other channels and blurs the distinction between entertainment and advertising, an effective way to create a positive perception of life in the forces.… Read more

Book Review: Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away with War Crimes

That Britain outsources aspects of her habitually violent foreign policy is no revelation. The wars in Afghanistan and Libya, but perhaps most especially Iraq, saw a veritable mercenary gold rush as the unregulated hard men of disaster capitalism, mostly ex-soldiers, flooded into the lawless zones created by Western intervention to make a quick buck as contractors providing security for oil firms, media crews, diplomatic missions, NGOs and more besides.

Before all of this there was Keenie Meenie Services (KMS): a shadowy private military firm set up in the 1970s by hardened SAS men and hidden away in the posh end of London. It discreetly carried out the dirty work of the British establishment, into which it was deeply embedded as this book shows – for the right price, naturally. That dirty work saw Keenie Meenie employees at the centre of repressive actions as far afield as Latin America and Sri Lanka and in support of autocrats across the Middle East. Whether it was training, advice, armed men or technical expertise, KMS provided it. No client too mad or bad, as long as it furthered British aims.

The pace and narrative are Le Carre-esque, but made even more compelling by the fact that the events are true.

Boris Johnson’s government and the military: a look ahead at 2020

Britain is just over a week into the new government’s tenure. What this means in the long term is hard to say but critical voices will be needed. For ForcesWatch, this means questioning the government on how they will be addressing issues such as legacy legal cases against soldiers, their policy on arms sales and the role of the military industrial complex in our education system. We have also picked out two early examples of the direction of defence reform under the Johnson government which we believe bear examination.

Arms sales

Before the election, the Conservative government fiercely defended the UK arms trade as well as broader relations with key consumers of British military technology like Saudi Arabia. In a Chatham House debate two weeks before the election, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab insisted that current arms control regulations on sales to authoritarian regimes were adequate.

A number of political parties including the Greens, Labour and the SNP supported far more stringent controls on arms in their manifestos. These ambitions remain but must now contend with an 80-seat Tory majority. This fight for human rights will continue in parliament, in the courts, and it certainly didn’t stop for the election. On the 11 December a group of human rights organisations filed a case with the International Criminal Court accusing global arms giant BAE Systems and other companies of being a party to war crimes in Yemen.… Read more

#GE2019: security & defence

This #GE2019 manifesto for peace and security (90 seconds) from the Rethinking Security group gives an alternative vision of defence policy.

The 2019 General Election campaign is well underway with much of the debate focusing on domestic issues like inequality, education, healthcare and the UK’s future relationship to Europe. Clearly, these are key topics for many millions of people in the UK and each is deeply intertwined with questions of human security. Less remarked upon, beyond mudslinging from the Labour and Conservatives parties about whose leader is more of a security threat, are issues around defence, the military and foreign policy.

We decided to carry out a potted analysis of existing positions and manifesto pledges of Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the major nationalist parties and the Greens to try and unpack differences and similarities in policy. Much of this has been drawn directly from the party Manifestos but also useful is recent Chatham House foreign affairs debate which is worth watching for comparison on a wider range of international affairs, such as future relations to China and Turkey, which are not included here.

The Conservative Party

The Conservatives frame themselves as the traditional party of defence and have been in power for nine years under three different Prime Ministers.… Read more