‘Defence diplomacy’ (2024)

From the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Christmas Eve the Ministry of ‘Defence’ announced that a Royal Navy warship, HMS Trent, would be deployed to Guyana in South America. Sky News described the ship as one used for ‘defence diplomacy’ (tinyurl.com/cysxnpyf).

What, then, was the diplomacy that required the deployment of a gunboat in support? The one-word answer is ‘oil’. The Harvard International Review (27 September) noted:

‘In 2015, the oil giant Exxon Mobil discovered 11 billion barrels of oil off the coast of the small Latin American country. The discovery promises to change Guyana forever, catapulting the country and its people to new heights of power and wealth. Oil already generates US$1 billion in revenues annually for the government and will produce an estimated US$7.5 billion by 2040. By these forecasts, Guyana—the impoverished, rainforest-covered country of just 800,000 people—will become the fourth largest offshore oil producer in the world.’

The discovery was off the coast of a part of Guyana which has been the object of a territorial dispute with its neighbour, Venezuela, since the middle of the 19th century when Guyana was part of the British Empire. In 1899 an international court of arbitration awarded the disputed area to Britain. It’s an area comprising some 75 percent of present-day Guyana. Venezuela never accepted the decision, alleging that it was rigged, but didn’t insist too much in pursuing its claim until now.

On 3 December the Venezuelan government, under Hugo Chávez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, held a referendum throughout the country about whether or not to reject the 1899 ruling and to incorporate the area as a new province. The result was a huge majority for, but on a low turnout, and the government duly established the new province, on paper.

Venezuela, much as it would like to acquire control of the new oilfield, is unlikely to try to actually annex the disputed area. The referendum had more to do with the presidential elections later this year and as a way of trying to win votes for Maduro by beating the nationalist drum. In any event, it is not the land, mainly tropical forest with a few gold mines, that Venezuela really would like so much as the territorial waters off the area’s coast where the oil is. Diplomatic talks have begun, with the US and Britain backing Guyana. Hence the dispatch of the Royal Navy warship to carry out its role in ‘defence diplomacy’.

Diplomacy is not a matter of working out what is the fair solution to a dispute between states. An important factor affecting the outcome is the relative strength of the two sides. In relations between states might is right. Venezuela may be stronger than Guyana and so could seize the land it claims. But Guyana is backed by the US and Britain, because they don’t want a state with a nationalist anti-American government to control the new oilfield (they want a friendly state to) or to extend its territory (in fact they have been working to overthrow the government there), and Venezuela is in no position to take them on any more than it was to challenge the British Empire in 1899.

The cannons roar

In another part of the world another Royal Navy warship, HMS Diamond, has also been engaged in ‘defence diplomacy,’ in the Red Sea. In fact it actually used its weapons. As the Royal Navy’s website boasted on 19 December:

‘Diamond’s actions in the small hours of Saturday morning is the first time a Type 45’s Sea Viper missile has been used in action and the first such shootdown by the Royal Navy since the 1990-91 Gulf War’.

The British Minister of War, Grant Schapps, later threatened more ‘direct action’ than shooting down a few drones (Daily Telegraph, 1 January). On 11 January Britain carried out this threat by joining the US by bombing Yemen, escalating the war in the region.

What is going on in the Red Sea is an aspect of the question of who controls the Persian Gulf, its oilfields and the trade route out of it. In 1980 President Carter laid down the Carter Doctrine that: ‘Gulf oil reserves were of vital interest to the US and the US would therefore be justified in preventing outside domination of the region by military intervention’. This was invoked against Iraq in 1991 and in 2003. Now the threat is from Iran, with the US relying on Israel to counter this. Indeed Israel has already bombed Iran on a number of occasions.

Israel is currently engaged in a war of revenge against the Hamas administration in Gaza. The West supports this because Hamas is an enemy of Israel, its asset in the region, only cynically advising Israel not too kill too many Gazans.

Iran and its allies and proxies see the Gaza war as a chance to weaken Israel as the West’s asset. The pro-Iran government of Yemen has been attacking ships bound for Israel or owned by Israeli capitalists. This has led major shipping companies to re-route their ships round Africa, with serious consequences for international trade.

As the Royal Navy’s website explained:

‘An estimated 23,000 merchant vessels pass through the Bab-al-Mandeb choke point – with Suez the gateway to the Middle East and beyond for shipping from Europe… and for Europe from shipping from the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Vice-Admiral Brad Cooper, the US officer commanding the Combined Maritime Forces from their headquarters in Bahrain, underlined that safe passage of the Red Sea was “crucial for the world economy”. He continued: “More than 10% of global trade transits the waters anchored by two globally strategic waterways – the Suez Canal and the Strait of Bab-al-Mandeb. Regionally, it has even greater impact, channelling trade across more than half the globe, ranging from Europe to Asia.”’

HMS Diamond’s commanding officer was quoted as saying: ‘The Royal Navy has always been committed to the protection of maritime trade’. By force if necessary. In this case in the context of the wider conflict of economic interest in the Middle East between the West and Iran over who controls oil in the Gulf and the trade route out of it.

Adam Buick

News in Review: The Budget (1967)

The News in Review column from the May 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Budget

Callaghan's 1967 Budget, for the man in the street whose fortune is supposed to be involved in it, was nothing more than a bore. Very few people seemed to be aware that April 11 was Budget Day; even fewer seemed to care.

The reason for the apathy was that nobody expected any great changes in taxation; the financial pundits had almost unanimously forecast what is called a standstill Budget, although there were the usual pleas for some sections of the population (somebody seems to have suddenly discovered that there are actually people living in dire poverty) and for some regions of the country (it seems suddenly to have become obvious in certain quarters that unemployment is not a thing of the past).

Callaghan, apparently, agreed with the experts. "Steady as she goes" was his epithet for the Budget and that was the most newsworthy thing about it. (Although one banker called it the Puppet On A String Budget)

Budget day is always the time for the airing of two delusions. The first is that a Chancellor of the Exchequer, by using Bank Rate or any of the other financial measures at his disposal, can exert an exact and sensitive control over the economy.

In truth, capitalism is quite uncontrollable—as many Chancellors have found to their cost. Callaghan was not the first Labour leader to apply nautical terms to a financial situation; last July Wilson, admitting that things were out of control, said that the economy had been "blown off course."

The second delusion is that changes in taxation have some significant effect on working class conditions. The most that any Budget can do to a worker is for a time to alter his take home pay, up or down, by a few shillings.

In the long run a worker gets paid what it takes to keep him. That is a fact of capitalism and, like its economic anarchy, is something which no Chancellor can change.

Our Boys in Aden

What are British troops doing in Aden, apart from putting the boot in and expressing a willingness to accept a massive punch-up?

The newspapers tell us they are keeping the peace, which avoids the question of why the peace is threatened.

Aden was annexed (a diplomat's word for stolen) by Britain in 1839, and used as a base to guard the trade route to India. (It is still the only fortified point between Egypt and Bombay).

When the British left India in 1948 it could have been the end of their interest in Aden, had it not been for the rich oil fields which had been discovered in the Middle East

Aden now stands guard on the Persian Gulf, where two-thirds of the oil resources of Western capitalism lie. Britain gets more than half its oil from the countries around the Persian Gulf and British oil companies own about one third of the Gulf's production.

It is to protect these interests that Our Boys in Aden are being killed—and are themselves doing a bit of killing. Sir William Luce, who was Governor of Aden 1959-60, made it clear in an article in the Daily Telegraph on April 12 last:

We did not undertake the “policing” of the Gulf for some vague, altruistic purpose; we went there, and have remained there, because it has suited us to do so.”

By “we” and “us” Sir William is really talking about the East India Company in the old days and the oil companies today. These are the interests which need working class bodies to protect them, interests which are threatened today by claims from Persia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and by the opposing Aden nationalists.

British capitalism’s only hope is to stay in Aden until some sort of order has been imposed in this conflict. A withdrawal now could well plunge the place into a Congo-like war, with serious results for the oilmen of the Persian Gulf.

So it looks as if Our Boys in Aden will have to carry on keeping the peace for a while, even if they have to kill half the population to do it

The Bristol Affair

Bristol Siddeley Motors’ excess profits on aero-engine overhaul—they had to pay back the government £3.9m.—is but one example of what goes on in capitalism. Recent years have also seen the Ferranti affair and the collapse of various insurance companies. But what effect do such commercial malpractices have on the working class as a whole? Well-meaning political reformers see this as a moral issue in which the community is harmed by loop-holes in the law and by administrative shortcomings which a minority exploit to line their pockets. The fog of moral indignation raised serves to obscure some very important points as far as the profit-making of capitalism is concerned. In the long run profits are not made by charging excessive prices or by milking the funds of companies. These are exceptional cases and fail to explain the source of the profit gained by the bulk of industrial and commercial enterprises. To find the answer production itself must be examined.

The people who do the work of producing and distributing goods and services do so for a wage or salary. However many sources of cheating are blocked off, and however much money is recovered by the government, wages will not be affected. These are normally raised by workers organising in unions to press for more. Employers, of course, are organised to resist these demands and to press their own for greater productivity or pay cuts as conditions demand.

Workers’ pay is part of the capital invested in production and is not their share of the product (which belongs in whole to the employer). Wages amount on the average to the sum of the things required to maintain workers and their families as healthy and efficient workers. As a class workers produce more than is needed to keep them and it is from this surplus that the employing class get their incomes. This comes to them in various forms such as rent, interest and profit and also provides the source of the funds which are needed by the government to finance their collective requirements such as armaments and the education, health and welfare of their workers.

So when arms contractors make more than the accepted rate of profit, it is a hindrance to the whole of the capitalist class in any country. The Bristol affair is but one of the sectional quarrels of capitalism in which all are striving for the maximum advantage. The government may be quite competent to deal with Bristol Siddeley but cannot hope to touch the greater question of the exploitation of the working class which is the norm of capitalism, with or without the swindles.

Editorial: Gulf Crisis (1998)

Editorial from the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month’s Gulf crisis demonstrated once again that the alliance for the Gulf War effort has effectively crumbled. Saddam Hussein expelled US/UN weapons inspectors from Iraq leading to the US, supported by Britain, threatening military action. But states such as France and Russia sought to undermine their stance–culminating in Russia offering Iraq a diplomatic way out of the crisis.

Since the end of the Gulf War the sanctions imposed on Iraq have really taken their toll on the Iraqi economy and the working class. This, of course, could potentially threaten the regime and Saddam needs to get the sanctions lifted as quickly as possible realising that the Gulf War alliance has ended and that any crisis would create a split between states such as France and the US. His ability to play off one against the other worked as once again the desperate Iraqi situation has been put on the agenda with France and Russia (amongst others) keen to bring Iraq into the world economy and moreover to provide capital to invest in Iraqi oilfields.

And here is the rub. The Gulf situation is just an expression of the competitive rivalry between the major powers in the age of “each against all”. By keeping Iraq as a “bogeyman” it allows the US a legitimate interest in the region. It’s always worth remembering that just prior to the Gulf War Iraq was backed as the region’s policeman–primarily to contain Iran. Despite everything, this is still the case. The US needs Saddam and has no intention of getting rid of him. The US strategy is one of keeping Iraq weak but just strong enough to handle any internal or external threat to the regime.

The idea that the US–backed by Britain–is the true defender of democracy against dictatorship, of civilisation against barbarism, is the sickest of jokes. Saddam could not have survived without the protection of the world’s largest gangster organisation–the United States. And just as in the Gulf War it is the impoverished and half-starved Iraqi working class that has paid the price. Like the working class everywhere it has no friends either in barbarian dictators or their supposedly “democratic” and “civilised” opponents.

Casualties (1987)

USS Stark

From the July 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every day wars are fought. Every day the pressures inside this society erupt as some new battleground opens somewhere in the world. Every day capitalism puts new lives on the line to fight over land or minerals or markets. Or, as Ronald Reagan recently put it after the "accidental" rocket attack on a US frigate in the Gulf, "safeguarding the interests of the US and the free world in the Gulf, remains crucial to our national security and to the security of our friends throughout the world".

That sounds unequivocal but friends and relatives of the 37 American sailors who died on the USS Stark will be confused to find out that after the Iraqi Exocet attack, the US administration is portraying Iran, not Iraq, as the villain of the piece. As one Arab diplomat put it.

  the US said it was a mistake to sell arms to Iran, and now Iraq says it was a mistake that the frigate was attacked. Now the two sides are even. It's ironic but the only major consequence of this incident may be a warming of relations between Washington and Baghdad.

The lives were not lost in vain, however — the US armed presence in the Gulf exists (just as for any other country) in order to protect the small number of American-flagged vessels (owned by a small number of Americans) that need to use the Gulf.

There won't be a small number for much longer, hence the build-up in the US state's pressure. By mid-July, eleven oil tankers owned by the Kuwaiti Oil Tanker Company will be transferred to a Delaware-based corporation, putting them under US registration, under the US flag and. more importantly, entitled to the protection of the US navy. While the oil barons and their class shift from nation to nation, flying the flag of greatest convenience, workers of the world are expected to put up with the rhetoric of "the national interest" and to put down their lives, if necessary. In Mexico, lives are risked in trying to cross the border into Texas; in Ireland, workers have to enter a lottery to get a visa to work in the US; in America, Reagan announces the plan to test all immigrants for the HIV virus. At the same time as people are being barred from access to parts of the world, there's no problem, about becoming American if you are an oil tanker.

Of course, it's not just about oil. Capitalism produces many conflicts between nations. It produces many strategies, alliances and rivalries which cannot be ignored. Last December, Washington turned down a Kuwaiti request for help but following the news that the Russians were preparing to provide the naval escort, Washington quickly offered their help. Oil is just one example but it is part of a much bigger ballgame. and such small apparently insignificant disputes can easily turn into something much worse within days. Remember the Falklands War? But do you remember the almost comical news that preceded it, about the scrap-metal merchants from Argentina who had landed on something called South Georgia. Similarly, some small item on tonight's news about some far-off battle in some far-off place with a funny name could be the first kicks, the labour pains for the Third World War.

But whatever the battles are fought over, it’s not in the interests of the vast majority that are at stake. There's only a few people who stand to win or lose in times of war. The business pages of the papers make that quite clear:

 Shell, up 10p at 1011p. and BP. 11p ahead at 749. were the hot favourites as word filtered through that 2.000 lraquis had been killed in a new Iranian offensive. . .

(London Evening Standard. 9 January 1987)

Offensive is the word. And of course it's not the shareholders or the politicians who do the fighting. They stay safe in their offices rattling their sabres and letting others do the dying. According to diplomats in Washington, the deaths on the USS Stark, "provided President Reagan with a golden opportunity to demonstrate to the 'Gulf Cooperation Council' the US's determination to pay with its own lives to protect the oil lanes, despite the cooling in relations because of the American arms sales to Iran". (Guardian, 19 May 1987)

Where, for that matter, was Reagan when American teenagers were dying "to safeguard the interests of the US and the free world", during the Second World War? As someone who sometimes appears to welcome the prospect of a Third World War, he was in no hurry to appear in the last one — Reagan spent the war working for the FBI spying on any suspect communist subversives in Hollywood. One actor that he'd never need to worry about is Sylvester Stallone who has made millions out of encouraging American children to hate Russians in Rocky IV (like I-III). and to kill Vietnamese in Rambo (Rocky without boxing gloves). The actor though, doesn't quite match up to the wide range of characters he portrays: would Rambo have refused (as Stallone did last year) to travel to Cannes for the Film Festival, for fear of attacks from terrorists (or at least film critics)?

Recently our hero has been in Israel looking for a new location for an old script, as Rambo turns his attention to the Gulf after having finished off anyone with slanty-eyes in his previous film. But where was Stallone when the real Vietnam War was on, the one without the make-up and the blanks? Apparently Stallone saw out the war as a Physical Education instructor at a finishing school for rich young women in the jungles of Switzerland. Of course we've nothing against draft dodgers, quite the opposite in fact. But these are the people (and Stallone is just one of the more obvious) who encourage nationalism, who profit from warmongering, and who are all for dying for their country, just so long as it doesn't include them. But what of the sailors who did die in USS Stark? They died for precisely nothing — to help save Reagan's face after Irangate, to defend the American Oil Corporations.

There'll be another conflict in the Gulf, sooner or later. More names to be chiselled into the war memorial. But if the next conflict escalates, it won't just be the soldiers and sailors who suffer. We'll all be in the front line. If you put your trust in leaders, give up your power to politicians, and give up your imagination to film stars, the next thing you could find yourself giving up is your life.

50 Years Ago: Our Boys in Aden (2017)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

What are British troops doing in Aden, apart from putting the boot in and expressing a willingness to accept a massive punch-up?

The newspapers tell us they are keeping the peace, which avoids the question of why the peace is threatened.

Aden was annexed (a diplomat’s word for stolen) by Britain in 1839, and used as a base to guard the trade route to India. (It is still the only fortified point between Egypt and Bombay).

When the British left India in 1948 it could have been the end of their interest in Aden, had it not been for the rich oil fields which had been discovered in the Middle East.

Aden now stands guard on the Persian Gulf, where two-thirds of the oil resources of Western capitalism lie. Britain gets more than half its oil from the countries around the Persian Gulf and British oil companies own about one third of the Gulf’s production.

It is to protect these interests that Our Boys in Aden are being killed—and are themselves doing a bit of killing. Sir William Luce, who was Governor of Aden 1959-60, made it clear in an article in the Daily Telegraph on April 12 last:

  ‘We did not undertake the “policing” of the Gulf for some vague, altruistic purpose; we went there, and have remained there, because it has suited us to do so.’

By ‘we’ and ‘us’ Sir William is really talking about the East India Company in the old days and the oil companies today. These are the interests which need working class bodies to protect them, interests which are threatened today by claims from Persia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and by the opposing Aden nationalists.

British capitalism’s only hope is to stay in Aden until some sort of order has been imposed in this conflict. A withdrawal now could well plunge the place into a Congo-like war, with serious results for the oilmen of the Persian Gulf.

So it looks as if Our Boys in Aden will have to carry on keeping the peace for a while, even if they have to kill half the population to do it.

(From “Review”, Socialist Standard, May 1967)