Smith offers a striking word for the spread of terrorism: “rhizomatic”. It propagates like a weed, by the root below ground, swiftly and unseen. You can chop heads off, but it carries on spreading down below. So is the hunt for Osama Bin Laden a distraction? “Well, Al-Qaeda isn’t hierarchical. The idea (of militant Islam) is already franchised.”
How do you destroy Al-Qaeda? “The Romans sowed salt into the soil of their enemies’ land to stop the grass growing, making it impossible to live there.”
Where have we gone wrong in the war on terror? “The use of force must be more closely aligned to the political objective,” Smith says sternly. “There have been operations in northwestern Iraq in the past week where it is claimed a number of terrorists were killed. Were they really terrorists? Who was actually driven out, other than rightful occupants? What political acts are taking place now to take advantage of whatever has been gained? I suspect very little. And I suspect when (coalition forces) go away, there will be a brief silence until it all goes off again.”
Do such offensives advance the cause? “My suspicion is no.” Is the situation in Iraq impossible? “Not impossible, but it might be beyond our resources. The longer the mistrust continues, the harder it is.” To establish a democracy we approve of, we need order. But by sweeping away civic society, the only home-grown authority left is that of the militant mullahs. “So who is providing order? I don’t think we ever asked that question.”
How does this failure hit troop morale? “Morale for me is about overcoming adversity; it is not about a sense of happiness,” he says, just to get that straight. “But soldiers might not sign on for the pleasure of returning. It might well have an effect on whether they want to stay in the army.” Because of a lack of direction? “Exactly. It is unrewarding. Where can be the sense of progress? People like to be on the winning side,” he laughs. “Sure, you might win particular battles but does this contribute to the whole?”
Has war in Iraq helped to spread our values? “It is probably too early to say but the indications are that it is not helping.” Why? “It is likely that we are spreading the cancer (of terrorism), combined with a demonstration of our own ineffectiveness. Plus, in Britain, a lack of popular support. These,” he says dryly, “are all negatives.”
Smith resists blaming Blair personally, instead highlighting “institutional thinking” that does not “recognise the nature of these conflicts”. But, as he suggests, our armed forces are infinitely adaptable — “show me another little army in the world that can fight Northern Ireland, Iraq twice and Bosnia all in 15 years” — and he clearly thinks it is a failure of government to bring about change.
Unusually for a soldier, he blames the stalemate of recent operations, such as in Afghanistan, on too little, rather than too much, political interference. “The outcome we want is political. No political involvement is worse than too much and I have been in both situations. Generalship is about riding the line between military and political objectives. You cannot possibly discharge your duty to your political masters if you don’t understand what they are about.”
Take the attack on Goose Green in the Falklands war. “Julian Thompson, brigade commander, did not want to attack. But he kept being told to do so and he couldn’t understand why. What he didn’t know was that there was about to be a very important meeting of the United Nations where Britain was seeking a licence to fight and we wanted to show we were going to fight anyway.”
He suggests that we should learn from empire, so when we go into places like Iraq we appoint a modern-day governor-general who directs military and political operations. But are politicos competent? “John Major had never been near the military but didn’t miss a beat. My problem with politicians is that they don’t reach down far enough.”
His big point on Iraq is that while Britain may have been consulted on matters military, British — and perhaps even American — politicians seem to have had little influence on the overall political strategy. The reason? There wasn’t a political strategy: “Administering an occupied country was seen as part of the military operation, which denies the political purpose of your force.”
If Britain joins America as international policeman, how can we influence a country that powerful? “Is it so powerful?” But America is the world’s only superpower. “Can you show me in every case that America is powerful or is that just your assumption? It is not very powerful in Iraq. As Foucault says, ‘Power is not a possession, it is a relationship’.”
Blimey, quoting French philosophers is hardly standard banter in the officers’ mess. If it were, perhaps we wouldn’t be in such a, well, mess: we may have all the military hardware, but if it fails to force others to bend to our will we are actually no mightier than Mali.
Unfashionably, Smith believes that the European Union has the potential to become more effective than Nato “because it has levers on other forms of power. Nato just does force. You might not approve of Europe but I find it hard to see why it can’t use force if it wants. Europe has been disturbing the world for centuries. There is nothing in the gene bank that says it can’t do these things”.
If this were not enough for the top brass to chew on, Smith says the hardware will grow increasingly unaffordable so they will have to adapt commercial equipment to military ends: “There are no longer budgets for arms manufacturers to keep production lines rolling. They will build a certain number of fighter aircraft to meet specific orders. There is no longer an industrial military machine and, even if there were, it would be a target of weapons of mass destruction.
“So the military will have to buy equipment from the commercial sector. Already electronic technology in the private sector is more advanced than anything in the military world.” Our equipment can be civilian because our enemy will also be civilian. In the battles ahead we will seek to gain information, not territory.
How will the war on terror be won? “I don’t know,” admits Smith, “but we have to do better than we are.” At least he is teaching us to ask the right questions. His is a lesson in violence that Blair and George W Bush need to learn pretty quickly, before the inferno engulfs us all.
