In a recent article, Jeremy Brookman argued that Cymru should join NATO. And several articles have been published that attempt to identify the military resources Cymru should have on the basis of comparison to other small European nations.
Such assertions are, in my view, premature and misguided. As Carl von Clausewitz famously observed, war is a tool used to achieve national goals once diplomatic methods have failed. We should plan for an independent Cymru on that basis.
Cymru’s force posture
It’s meaningless to discuss Cymru’s future military arrangements without first agreeing what our national goals would be, and what our diplomatic relations would try to achieve and with whom. An independent Cymru’s force posture will have to address two questions:
1. What are our national security needs?
2. What funds and other resources are available to establish and maintain an adequate response to those needs?
The first question needs to be broken down into three subtopics:
1. External security
2. Internal security
3. Economic security
These can’t be separated from each other.
Given that we’re talking about a newly-independent country, money will be tight. We’ll have to urgently spend large amounts on remedying London’s long neglect of Welsh needs. This includes urgently making hundreds of unstable coal tips safe for the long term, and addressing our appalling social deprivation. We’ll probably need to redesign and relocate much of our national infrastructure – particularly coastal railway lines close to the current sea level, which are at risk due to climate change. Such things are essential and immediate priorities, but will be very costly.
As a small country, we’ll need to maximise the number of people who are economically active, to help build a strong and sustainable economy. This must reflect the fact that our population is aging: we’ll have ever-fewer military-age people. That limits the numbers we can commit to our new armed forces.
Independence and national security
In the context of straitened resources, how do we address national security? Both external and economic security will best be achieved by diplomatic means. Cymru will need to invest heavily in attracting the best and brightest to our new diplomatic service, able to negotiate the best trade deals, and to act as mediators and peacemakers.
What military threats will we face from outside? Even in a world that’s becoming much more unstable, these are few. China has great ambitions, but its global force projection is aimed at keeping its trade routes secure, not conquest. Russia? Despite fear-mongering in western capitals, I believe Moscow poses no direct threat to Cymru. Who, then? Realistically, there aren’t pressing threats to our national territory.
A bigger issue will be border control with England. Will it be a hard border with fences, or a soft one? That will depend on political decisions. It may be that we’ll have free movement (if England also wants it: it’s not our decision alone). However, if we chose to join the European Economic Area (EEA) but England didn’t, it would give us free movement and right of residence in 30 member states. A hard border with England would be an acceptable price to pay for that.
Either way, cross-border crime will be a serious problem. Criminals involved in anything from the county lines drug gangs to thieves raiding Welsh farms would be able to escape across the border to England, beyond the reach of Welsh justice.
What will we need in response? Large-scale drone surveillance. Communications intercepts and intelligence-gathering. Rapid response and pursuit capacity, both airborne and ground-based. A coast guard that can not only rescue mariners in distress but also pursue and apprehend those throwing containers full of drugs into our seas.
No, no NATO
All these internal security needs overlap with external security. It makes no sense to have two separate structures duplicating the same work. Post-independence, it would be better to reorganise on lines similar to those of France and other European nations. We’d have a small national police force with a limited role, covering only larger urban areas.
Most current police functions would be transferred to a larger force of armed gendarmes, which would cover smaller communities and rural areas. The gendarmerie would have responsibility for border security, public order, anti-smuggling, and counter-terrorism, and could act as infantry when needed for defence against external enemies.
As noted, there aren’t likely to be many such enemies. So should Cymru join NATO? In my view, no.
NATO was formed for mutual defence against the Soviet Union and its eastern European allies. Both the USSR and the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist decades ago, and NATO should have gone with them. I assert that it’s an anachronism, serving no useful purpose.
This view is bolstered by two reports published by the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, which was established by the Duke of Wellington in 1831. The first concludes that NATO member states no longer possess the industrial capability to wage war. They cannot manufacture the munitions or equipment needed for modern combat, and it would take decades of investment to rebuild that capacity. The second report starkly concludes that NATO’s entire concept of war-fighting is outdated and unsuited to modern peer conflicts.
Not only do NATO countries lack adequate equipment and manpower, their structures and tactics are also unfit for purpose according to Ukrainian soldiers who received NATO training. The entire NATO concept of how to fight a war is obsolete.
Permanent interests
In short, NATO doesn’t have the means to fight, and wouldn’t know how to if it did. Joining NATO would not protect Cymru and its people.
The picture that emerges instead is that of a small National Defence Force integrating land, sea, and air operations, supplemented by gendarmerie. Since Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in 2020 by use of drones, it’s been clear that the future of warfare lies in drones, missiles, air defence, and electronic warfare, not tank regiments. This has been made even clearer by the progress of the conflict in Ukraine, and the inability of NATO’s high-tech warships and aircraft to counter Yemeni Houthi use of such low-cost methods in the Red Sea.
We’ll need coast guard cutters and some air capacity as well, of course. We should be well able to invest in the tools needed to defend our own land. We won’t have the resources to fight elsewhere, too.
That returns us to the conclusion that we’ll be better served by investing heavily in developing the best diplomatic service we can, and building strong relationships with those countries that supply the resources and markets we need to develop our economy. Most won’t be in NATO, or even in ‘the West’: they’ll be in Asia, Africa, and the rest of the ‘Global South’.
As Palmerston observed, nations have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. NATO is a dinosaur, a relic from a different time and a different world. Joining it wouldn’t advance our interests. Better to be neutral, able to defend our own land, and to build friendly links with all nations to promote the interests of our own nation and people.
