POLITICS
Political correctness could be more of a threat than Marxist-Leninism
BRUCE ANDERSON
On defence, New Labourites react indig- nantly to any suggestion that the gap between them and their predecessors is less than total. It is easy to see why they respond in this way. Not only have the 'useful idiots' (Lenin's phrase) of CND lost all influence on Labour policy; the party's pro-Soviet wing is virtually extinct. Labour's approach has changed dramatically since the days when Tony Blair belonged to CND. As a result, the threat to Britain's defence capability is greater than ever.
Ultimately, the fellow-travellers and uni- lateralists were easy to defeat, partly because they were a chronic electoral liability; after 1945, the Red Army never had much hold on British public opinion. But the dangers now are internal, not external, stemming from cultural developments which could make it impossible to maintain a fighting capability. Political correctness is a far more formidable opponent than unilateralism.
The problems arise from an implicit assumption which almost all liberals share and which is incompatible with an effective fighting force. Those on the liberal left believe that the armed forces should be assimilated into the rest of society; some of them, indeed, want to use the forces as a lab- oratory for advanced social engineering. The logic of their position is that, uniforms apart, a cross-section of service personnel should be indistinguishable from a similar cross-section of the civilian population, and that both groups should enjoy the same rights. This is thoughtless nonsense; it is also subversive.
Except during the world wars and the brief interlude of peacetime conscription, the forces have never resembled the rest of soci- ety, and even when the military were process- ing millions of civilians into uniform, they made almost no concessions to civilian mores. Until well into the last century — and to some extent still today — the army recruited its officers from the minor gently and above, its other ranks from the poor. Until the last war, however, the rest of society bore a much closer resemblance to the armed forces Than it does today. At that time, life for most peo- ple was uncomfortable, frequently harsh, often short. The transition from slum or insanitary and overcrowded cottage to the barrack-room cannot have been so great.
But that is no longer the case. Almost everyone today lives in conditions of comfort which our ancestors would have found unimaginable. We also live much longer, in good health, while working conditions have improved out of all recognition. There is so much less of that hard manual labour in farm, factory or pit, which might have made the recruiting office appear like an escape route. By all previous standards, most of our civilian population live a soft, even luxurious, life, and wish to go on doing so. But if we want our comforts to continue indefinitely, we must recognise a risk and pay a price.
Over the New Year, the television news was dominated by the Dome. But at the end of each broadcast, there was usually a 30-second round-up: war in Chechnya, inter-communal conflict in Indonesia, bombs in Sri Lanka, tension between India and Pakistan, threats from Iran. Much of the rest of the world is neither living a soft life nor thinking soft thoughts; it is as if we were Romans, con- cerned only by the odds on the next day's chariot race, while the barbarians were mass- ing just north of the Apennines. The dis- tances are somewhat greater, but that is irrel- evant. These days, danger does not have to arrive at marching pace. Globalisation does not just mean shopping on the Internet: threats and terror can also be globalised.
We still need a powerful defence capability just as much as we did during the Cold War. But successive governments have been reluc- tant to admit this. Since the early Nineties, there has been a substantial peace dividend, but much of it has been paid out of working capital. There is a serious and growing prob- lem of overstretch.
When considering the forces' numbers, many new ministers make the same mistake. They assume that if there is an army of 100,000, 100,000 men will be available for duty, anywhere, instantly. It has to be explained to them that soldierly efficiency can only be achieved by training: 'hard train- ing means easy fighting'. They also have to learn that different tasks require different training; you do not just send a soldier from KOsovo to Ulster or vice versa. Yet ministers who cannot even organise a queuing system for the Dome are sometimes bewildered to learn that the military's concert-pitch perfor- mance requires constant rehearsal.
It also requires a continuous supply of hard men. However technologically sophisti- cated warfare may become, we will still need infantrymen to occupy and hold ground. Over centuries, the army has learnt how to train such men. You start off with rough masculinity and subject it to a training based on the sergeant's bark at a group of new recruits hanging back rather than jumping a deep ditch: 'There's only one thing to be afraid of 'ere lads — and I'm be'ind yet.? At moments, such training is hardly distinguish- able from bullying, but it is building the man up even as it appears to be breaking him down. By the end, the soldier will not only be far tougher than he ever imagined himself to be; he should also have learned discipline — though he will still not be a plaster saint.
He will also have bonded with his fellows. Very few front-line soldiers stand and fight and advance for Queen and country; they do their duty because they do not want to let their mates down, or to disgrace themselves. That is why the army spends so much time instilling regimental loyalties; battles are won by the courage of the little platoons.
But if that little platoon includes overt homosexuals, its cohesion, its discipline and its fighting spirit will all be dramatically impaired. There will be no hope of building up group loyalty if one of the group is a homosexual activist with his own extra-mili- tary agenda, like some of the dismissed homosexuals whom the government is now readmitting to the forces. Under the old sys- tem, there were homosexuals in all ranks, some of whom were first-class soldiers. But they stayed in the closet, which is where they should remain. If homosexuals are allowed to outrage their fellow soldiers, a 600-strong fighting battalion will rapidly degenerate into 600 disciplinary problems.
As the Israelis discovered, the problems would be even worse if women were allowed on the front-line. Saving Private Ryan will have persuaded most people that women should not be allowed into combat, and real- istic though it was, Private Ryan did not deal with lavatories. Miraculous though it may seem to us civilians, soldiers will continue to fight even amid the horrors of the battlefield. But if women were being blown to pieces, the men's morale would disintegrate.
Most of us take the forces for granted; they do not object. As long as they are ade- quately funded and allowed to organise themselves as they know best — which they have proved — they will do what they are tasked to do. But if any government insists on regulating military activity by politically- correct criteria, the whole apparatus will crumble. The forces faced down Marxist- Leninism: liberalism may prove a more dangerous opponent.
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