National and International Security

National and International Security

The Armed Forces

Britain faces many challenges in the world today. Our armed forces have been deployed in a much wider range of difficult and dangerous situations than has occurred for many decades - Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq. Service chiefs have warned that our armed forces are reaching the limit of what they can be asked to do. Yet incredibly, at this time, the Labour government is imposing defence cuts:

- The regular infantry has been cut by the merger of Scottish regiments into a single regiment.

- In April 2006 the government announced that the territorial army (TA) infantry would be cut by 900 soldiers - at the very time that service chiefs have warned that so many TA soldiers have been called up for service in Iraq, that the army does not have the capacity to send troops to any new crisis situations hat emerge.

- The commissioning of new Royal Navy ships has been delayed. British special forces have been left without the capacity to land from midget submarines. Instead they have been told they must now paddle ashore in canoes - a situation that service chiefs have said will endanger the lives of special forces.

Britain's armed forces do an excellent job, in often very difficult circumstances - but they need our full support. It is wholly unacceptable for the government with one hand, to ask them to do more and more in dangerous situations around the world, and with the other hand to impose defence cuts. Yet this government has both cut the infantry and put servicemen's lives at risk by denying them the use of vital equipment that until now they have been able to rely on.

In the April 2006 budget Gordon Brown promised money for school buildings. As a teacher I welcome this move. But in the same week the government announced they were cutting the TA infantry by 900 soldiers, at a time when Britain's armed forces, including the TA, were already overstretched serving in Iraq and about to start a major deployment in Southern Afghanistan. Gordon Brown should remember the fireman's motto of life before property when he writes his budgets. Money for school buildings is welcome - but not if they are paid for by further defence cuts that put British servicemen's lives at greater risk.

The Nuclear Threat

In recent years both Pakistan and India have tested nuclear devices, now Iran looks almost certain to develop nuclear weapons. Whether we like it or not, it is almost certain that eventually other countries will acquire the technology to make nuclear weapons. Some of these - such as Iran- will be countries that are hostile both to the democratic freedoms we cherish in the West - and to the West itself.

Whilst military attacks to take out nuclear facilities in countries such as Iran may delay the acquisition of nuclear weapons - they are ultimately unlikely to prevent them. Moreover, the inflaming of opinion across the Islamic world that such actions would create, would destroy much of the goodwill towards the West that world peace depends on. The only viable long term option is containment - and that means nuclear deterrence. The Iraq war has demonstrated the dangers of British foreign policy being too closely tied to the USA's. Britain must work with her allies in North America and Europe - but ultimately maintain an independent foreign policy. As such it is essential that Britain maintains an independent nuclear deterrent - and does not simply rely on the US 'nuclear shield' when trident comes to the end of its active life.

Islamic Extremism and Terrorism

I have a particular expertise to bring to this issue that has become one of the most urgent facing Britain today. Perhaps uniquely for someone involved in British politics, I have lived as an aid worker in both Pakistan and Afghanistan - both centres of Islamist terrorist networks. On a number of occasions during my time in Afghanistan I had to negotiate with senior members of the Taliban and other radical Islamist organisations such as the infamous Hezb-i-Islami group, who are now being hunted as Islamist terrorists by western military forces in Afghanistan.

As an academic specialising in Islamic Studies I have a real understanding of the ideology of radical Islamism. On my return to the UK from Afghanistan in summer 2006 I prepared a detailed advisory paper critiquing the Labour government's analysis of the causes of Islamic extremism and strategy for dealing with it. This paper was read by a number of Conservative shadow ministers including Michael Howard, then Leader of the Opposition. This paper demonstrated that Labour ministers have a fundamentally flawed understanding of the causes of Islamic extremism and have totally ignored the importance of deeply rooted Islamic concepts of jihad and political domination of the state as the driving force behind radical Islamism. The present Labour government whilst have rightly recognising that the vast majority of British Muslims practice an entirely peaceful form of Islam, have made a dangerous assumption that Islamic extremism and terrorism is primarily due to socio-economic deprivation suffered by some Muslims. (See Martin's article 'Islamic ideology, Muslims and British Politics' in the speeches and articles section).

The UK faces a threat from two distinct types of Islamist terrorists. Firstly, the highly organised groups such as al-Qaeda that spend years planning devastating attacks on major western targets; Secondly, radicalised young Muslims who feel alienated from the West and are inspired by figures such as Osama bin Laden to declare a jihad (holy war) against the West , planning DIY terrorist attacks such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings were and the 7/7 London bombings appear to have been.

At the same time there is a real danger that the government's focus on combating Islamist terrorism is in danger of letting another risk to our free democratic society slip in under the radar. A significant number of the Islamic organisations that the government has invited to consultations, whilst rejecting violence, nonetheless have as their aim the gradual establishment of an Islamic state in Britain, by a process of seeking to gradually align British law with Islamic law - either by taking test cases to the courts or by lobbying for laws such as the incitement to religious hatred bill, which would have severely restricted the freedom of both academics and members of other faiths to criticise Islam. One could be forgiven for wondering if it really was pure 'co-incidence' that the Labour government finally gave in to the longstanding demands of many Islamic organisations for such a bill - immediately after the 2005 general election when large numbers of previously solidly voted Labour Muslim voters - turned against Labour because of its decision to go to war in Iraq. Freedom of speech is an historic and vital part of our free democratic society. No party should even consider tampering with it to gain a temporary electoral advantage.

I believe that the government must adopt a multi pronged strategy to protect Britain from Islamic terrorism and extremism:

1. Intelligence led operations in cooperation with other friendly countries to destroy terrorist cells both in the UK and overseas. Currently, 14 out of 15 planned terrorist attacks in Europe are prevented from being carried out in this way.

2. Maintaining and building on LOCAL police intelligence - in order to provide 'early warning' of radicalised Muslims planning DIY attacks in the UK. To do this, it is essential that local police officers with local knowledge are kept in the area they know - rather than be redeployed in the regional police forces that the present government are seeking to rush into being without adequate consultation.

3. In so far as fair play and even handedness allow, we need to deal with some of the sources of grievances that terrorist recruitment feeds off. Only by doing this can we hope to deal with the radicalisation of a number of young British Muslims. Any future British involvement in military action against an Islamic country needs to be weighed up very carefully indeed, against the radicalisation of young British Muslims that will almost inevitably result. During the 2005 both Tony Blair and Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, repeatedly insisted that the Iraq war had made Britain a safer place. In fact, the opposite is very clearly the case.

4. Protection of those facilities that if hit would cause catastrophic damage, It is for this reason that I believe it is vital that the UK looks at alternatives to building a new generation nuclear power stations. Nuclear power stations which are built in coastal locations are extremely vulnerable to external attacks, as the planned attack on a Dutch nuclear reactor in 2004 demonstrated.

5. Look at ways of shutting down or blocking radical Islamist web sites that incite terrorism. In 1998 there were only 12 terrorist websites in the world - today there are at least 4,400 the majority of which are Islamists terrorist sites.

6. Clearly distinguish between radical Islamist ideology and ordinary Muslims. The overwhelming majority of British Muslims totally reject violence, feel a deep sense of loyalty to Britain and make a very significant contribution to British society.

7. Adopt a more discerning and prudent approach to those Islamic organisations that are using political correctness to seek to bring in an Islamic state by the backdoor, by gradually aligning British law with Islamic law.

9. Be very clear about the fundamentals of what a free society are - and not allow these to be compromised either by giving politically correct concessions to Islamic organisations that want to edge towards an Islamic state, or in the fight against terror, by violating basic human rights - such as the right not to be imprisoned without trial. The Labour government's proposal to allow 90 days imprisonment of those merely suspected of terrorism was an attack on some of the freedoms that Britain as enjoyed since the Magna Carta. The government's 90 day proposal also led to widespread and well justified fear in the Muslim community that many innocent Muslims will be imprisoned from up to 3 months without trial. As such, had this proposal gone ahead, not only would one of our most cherished historic British freedoms been severely curtailed, it would also have almost inevitably increased the small but significant percentage of British Muslim youth who have become radicalised. The Conservative defeat of Labour's 90 day detention proposal was an historic landmark defence of the fundamental values of a free democratic society, that Labour had lost sight of in the war on terror.

See Martin's article 'Islamic ideology, Muslims and British Politics' in the speeches and articles section.

Police Reform - Will it Help or Hinder the Fight Against Terrorism?

There are two basic types of Islamic terrorism and very different strategies are needed to deal with them.

The first is the al-Qaeda type of terrorism. Such operations are many years in the planning and carried out with a level of military sophistication that rivals that of many armed forces and draws on substantial resources. For example, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad spent two and half years planning the 9/11 attacks on the USA after Osama Bin Laden gave him the go ahead and involved the training of at least 22 hijackers. Western intelligence have a fairly good level of expertise in tracking those planning such attacks and have foiled more than 30 major attacks in Europe since 9/11.

The second type of Islamist terrorism is the DIY type that is much more difficult for intelligence agencies to track - as it is carried out quickly by radical Muslims not generally known to the intelligence services - often inspired by listening to radical preachers speaking on the jihad verses in the Qur'an and hadith, either in person, via tape recordings or via the internet. The Madrid train bombings which killed 198 people in March 2004 were a clear example of this second type of Islamist terrorism. The bombers were largely unknown to the intelligence services and planned and carried out the bombings in only 6 months, having obtained information on bomb making from terrorist websites.

The first type of terrorism requires national and international co-operation among police and intelligence agencies. The second type requires detailed local knowledge - the type of local knowledge that can only be built up when police officers stay in one area for long periods of time. However, the present government's merger of police forces into regional super forces - is likely to hinder this. Police officers who have built up an expertise in one city - may be redeployed to another location up to a hundred miles away.

Bizarrely, the Labour government has claimed that the need to tackle terrorism is one of the primary reasons why regional police forces are needed. But terrorism isn't primarily a regional issue. The international al-Qaeda type of Islamist terrorism requires a national/international coordinated response, while the DIY type of Islamist terrorism requires a sustained local response. The loss of local police officers with detailed local knowledge that is likely to result from the police force mergers, that the government is rushing through without proper consultation - is in fact likely to hinder the fight against terrorism, rather than help it.

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