Britain and France fighting together: it makes sense

The defence treaty being signed in London today by Britain and France seems more a matter of practicality than cordiality. Both countries have global military pretensions, complete with nuclear deterrent, aircraft carriers real or imagined and a declared ability to send a force of up to 30,000 ground troops almost anywhere in the world at a few days' notice. But neither country has the money to do this alone.

The blueprints for strategy and defence laid out by the new British government a fortnight ago, and by the newly elected President Sarkozy for France two years ago, are remarkably similar. The two defence reviews envisage roughly the same shape of maritime, air and land forces.

But neither can really be achieved on the funds available. The 10-year rolling budget laid out by the French in the Defence and Strategy White Book envisages an annual expenditure of something just over €30 billion at 2008 prices over ten years. By 2015 this simply will not cover the rising cost of what has been planned.

As for Britain, despite the wholesale cutting of military and civilian personnel, the  cutting of the fleet and cutbacks in aircraft procurement in the new defence review of a fortnight ago, it is becoming pretty evident that a great deal in the defence programme is still under-funded and sooner or later more cuts will have to be made.

"We have heard about the big items, like the carriers and the fighter aircraft," a recently retired senior MoD official said last week, "but we haven't had much about the Category C and D items in the equipment programme, where we are still about £4 billion short, and something will have to be done soon."

The two drivers to the new arrangement are the need to economise and maximise the use of force.

Britain and France remain the only two European Nato powers capable of sending a small division overseas for extended operations. The idea now is that they should be able to do it as part of a joint task force. Each national contingent of one or two brigades – between 6,500 and 14,000 troops – will maintain its own national identity but would come under a joint Anglo-French command.
 
This, of course, was the intention in the agreement signed by Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair at St Malo in December 1998 – which was done amid much grandstanding and fanfare as if it was a rerun of the Field of the Cloth of Gold meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I in 1520.

Like that gathering, the St Malo Treaty came to nothing, and the principals were soon falling out. First came Kosovo and then the Iraq debacle, by which time Tony and Jacques were on diplomatic non-speakers.

There is strong evidence to suggest that the rot had set in just weeks after the deal was signed – not least because military and civilian officials on both sides set out to kill it by neglect.

This time it's different. The terms agreed by the two heads of government will be left deliberately vague, so that the military chiefs and officials can make of it what they want. The new Chief of the British Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, wants to make the whole thing work, because it needs to work – in three main areas.

First there will be inter-operability in equipment like the new Airbus A400M transport plane and the RAF's new air tanker, based on an Airbus A330. Britain and France have shared the development of the Storm Shadow, a powerful standoff air launched missile. They are developing the same drones.

In the field, Special Forces and airborne forces have often trained and worked together.

And, while the Brits would not expect the French to help out with defence of the Falklands - and France would not want to see British Grenadiers fighting in Chad - there are plenty of hot spots where they can make common cause.

They have already carried out security operations together round the Horn of Africa, in the Gulf and Red Sea, and against piracy off Somalia. With Yemen, Somalia and Sudan threatening growing trouble, Britain and France might need to operate there together.

Today's treaty signing has provoked predictable 'Little England' headlines from the conservative media – raising the spectre that British troops may come under French command.

This argument is historical nonsense: British troops served a French Supreme Allied Commander, Ferdinand Foch, in the First World War, and French troops served under British generals, and they in turn under French superiors in Bosnia. It was a combined French and British artillery force that brought  the siege of Sarajevo to an end in September 1995.

This time round, however, there will have to be a deal of linguistic égalité as well as tactical fraternity. British officers and NCOs will have to learn French. ·