Deja Vu

Just over four years ago, on 28 August, I was flying one of the last RAF planes out of Kabul as my leadership of the UK’s evacuation flights came to an end. Every year, on this anniversary, I see widespread gratitude towards the brave service people under my command who evacuated 15,000 people. There is also anger at shambolic earlier decision-making that put us in greater danger and held us back from doing more. And there is bitterness at the legacy of our involvement in NATO’s 20-year Afghanistan mission. It is a moment of reflection for me and my fellow veterans. We must be better at honouring the 457 people we lost, and rewarding the sacrifices of all those who served.

Our history of troubled interventions has also shaped how our society thinks about the purpose of our armed forces, making a renewed, open discussion about their role essential. We cannot rebuild our defences and protect Britain without creating a shared understanding of what defence is for. In this time of increasing threats, we need robust public support for greater investment in everything from weapons systems to military housing. We need all our people and communities to feel positive about committing to service, as I did as a teenager. Many of us will need to play our part, whether in rebuilding our hollowed-out army, taking up roles in the new home guard, or contributing skills to our defence industry.

One of the greatest barriers to rearming is therefore a loss of trust – not in our armed forces, but in the purposes to which they are put. As a veteran and an MP, it’s now my job to help restate to different communities and generations the connection between the freedoms we enjoy and the necessity of defending them. Our way of life is one where people have the right to speak and live freely, and the responsibility to do so respectfully despite our differences. We must not take this for granted, because liberal democratic integrity is inherently threatening to self-serving autocrats like Putin. They thrive by destroying social trust and imprisoning minds in the shackles of despair – despair that no alternative exists to strongman rule, despite all its flagrant abuses. Authoritarian powers increasingly feel free to use any means, including outright military aggression, to expand the safe space for far-right corruption beyond their borders.

Our vulnerability to present threats is intertwined with our recent history. Rebuilding public confidence in the purpose of defence requires us to starkly contrast our current circumstances and strategy with misconceived interventions like Iraq and Libya. Polling now finds half the Population saying they would not fight if called upon, while 41 per cent of the public believe that the Iraq war made the world less safe. This is understandable, because it is based on a recognition that the era of global interventions following 9/11 was a major strategic failure. Our collective actions not only failed to anticipate and prevent the escalating threats of today, but contributed to them, by undermining hard-won international norms and institutions.

Fractured public confidence is not only a legacy of the past. Right now, the reputation of our defence industry and even our armed forces is again being challenged – by continued, if limited, arms sales to Israel, and by RAF overflights of Gaza whose purpose has taken far too long to make clear. We cannot shy away from these uncomfortable conversations if we are to pull together in face of threats that are immediate and deadly.

Putin’s Russia has forces of a scale we have not faced for decades. They have demonstrated a long-term commitment to attack and undermine us using every available tactic. Threats from constantly increasing cyberspace attacks, sabotage of essential power and communications systems, and even missile and drone attack on our cities must not be underestimated.

The danger is right on our doorstep, right now. Putin’s agents have already used chemical weapons – supposedly the boldest of international red lines – in an attack on UK soil. In my own constituency, Russia-linked channels have been inciting and organising both arson attacks and hate crimes designed to split our communities apart.

The days of hubristic Western intervention aimed at promoting a certain political system abroad are gone. To clear the decks and rebuild, we need to say ‘good riddance ‘to such ideas. The purpose of UK defence today is utterly distinct. The task before us is not promoting our values abroad. It is ensuring that the values we live by can survive, at home and among our allies, despite all the forces arrayed against us. This is why we must put the past behind us and come together – and this is why we must rearm.

Image credit: Jonny Gios via unsplash