Luke Coffey: The UK should confront Argentina over its debt

Luke Coffey is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think-tank. He previously served as a Special Adviser in the Ministry of Defence. Follow Luke on Twitter.

The flag ship of the Argentine Navy, the ARA Libertad, has been captured off the coast of West Africa and more than 200 members of its crew have been detained — not by Royal Navy and not because of any dispute dealing with the Falkland Islands. The school and training ship, valued at $10 million, is now the property of NML Capital Ltd, a subsidiary of the US hedge fund Elliott Management Corporation, which has been battling Argentina over the country's debt default a decade ago.

The big story with Argentina this year has been Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s increasingly bellicose rhetoric over the Falkland Islands and the 30^th anniversary of the Falklands War.

However, there is another issue concerning Argentina that warrants international attention: its debt.

Luke Coffey: It is time for Britain to recognise the Russian occupation of Georgia

Luke Coffey is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think-tank. He previously served as a Special Adviser in the Ministry of Defence. Follow Luke on Twitter.

Four years ago this week in August 2008, while the world was fixated on the Summer Olympics in Beijing, hundreds of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles passed through the Roki tunnel on the Russian-Georgian border. Today, as the spectacle of London’s Summer Olympics is watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world, we should not forget that 10,000 Russian troops still occupy 20 percent of Georgia’s internationally recognised territory.

At the time, Russian troops got within mere miles of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi and even bombed the civilian airport there. Hostilities were finally brought to an end after a Six Point Ceasefire Agreement was brokered by then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Russia is still in direct violation of this ceasefire agreement and very few in the world even care.

Four years after Russia agreed, as part of the ceasefire agreement, to withdraw their military forces behind their pre-August 2008 positions one only has to visit the Line of Occupation to see the effects of Russia’s military build up. Once there, an observer will see Russian checkpoints flying Russian flags and manned with Russian soldiers - all in an area that is internationally recognised to be inside the Republic of Georgia. This is the 21st century’s version of the 20th century Cold War front line.

South Ossetia has essentially become one large Russian military base. Beyond the reach and sight of the European Union Monitoring Mission (the Russians do not allow international monitors to enter the occupied territories - another violation of the Six Point Ceasefire Agreement), the Russians have deployed advanced anti-aircraft systems, rocket launchers, and tactical ballistic missiles. Since Georgia’s capital is only 30 miles away, all of this is within striking distance of Tbilisi. Unfortunately, none of this looks temporary and the Russians appear to be there to stay.

Luke D Coffey: On Trident, the Liberal Democrats are dangerously wrong

Luke Coffey is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think-tank. He previously served as a Special Adviser in the Ministry of Defence. Follow Luke on Twitter.

The Defence Secretary Philip Hammond’s announcement this week that Britain will be ordering reactors for a new class of nuclear submarines is good news for Britain’s future security, the Royal Navy and British jobs.  

This announcement has, of course, revived debate surrounding the future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. As ever, the Liberal Democrats’ have offered their favourite arguments in favour of so-called cheaper alternatives to the current Trident system.  However, these arguments fall flat once they hit reality.   

To be credible, any nuclear deterrent must be maintained continuously. Any adversary must know, or at least believe, that the UK has a nuclear strike capability beyond their reach and that it is always deployed and ready for use.  This is the assumption that underpins any decision taken in the Ministry of Defence regarding the next generation of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. As military experts will tell you: if you do not have continuous deterrence, then you do not have any deterrence.

Let’s examine some of the alternatives being argued.

A land-based nuclear deterrent system would provide continuous coverage but would also create a static target for any adversary to hit in a first strike. It would be interesting to see which Members of Parliament are going to want this in their constituency. In order to achieve the same capability as the current Trident system, a land-based nuclear missile system would have to be spread across a distance one and a half times the size of Wales. Only at that scale could system survivability be assured in the event of a nuclear war. With the geographical vastness of the United States or Russia this is possible. In the United Kingdom, this is completely unrealistic.

Luke D Coffey: The Government made the right decision on the Joint Strike Fighter

Luke Coffey previously served as a Special Adviser to Liam Fox in the Ministry of Defence. Follow Luke on Twitter. 

The Government made the right decision to change from the Carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) back to the Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant of the JSF. However, this is not because David Cameron and Liam Fox were both wrong when they agreed in 2010 that the Carrier variant of the JSF was better for the Royal Navy—which it is, but because the assumed cost of equipping the carriers with this variant has unreasonably increased out of control. 

When the Coalition Government was formed in May 2010 it was no surprise that it would want to examine all the options for Britain’s future aircraft carriers. During the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) a number of options were considered for the carrier programme, including the option of cancelling the programme altogether. Many supported this latter option.  However, it was soon clear that the contracts signed by the Labour Government meant that cancelling the carriers would cost more than building them. Furthermore, as a maritime nation, Britain needed them. Cancelling them was not an option.

As clearly stated in the 2010 SDSR the Carrier variant of the JSF is a more capable aircraft.  It has a longer range, it can carry a heavier payload if needed and it has a cheaper through-life operating cost. This is why the Carrier variant was chosen over STOVL. However, there was one catch with choosing the Carrier variant —catapults and arrestor gear, commonly known as “cats and traps”, had to be first installed on the carrier.