Blair urges Britain to maintain his war policy

The New York Times says that "Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday urged his successors to maintain the warlike foreign policy that he promoted, sending troops into battle in Africa and the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"To retreat in the face of global terrorism, he said in a speech to military specialists abroad a transport ship, would be 'a catastrophe.'"

“There are two types of nations similar to ours today,” he said. “Those who do war fighting and peacekeeping and those who have, effectively, except in the most exceptional circumstances, retreated to peacekeeping alone. Britain does both. We should stay that way,” he said.

“The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel,” he said. “What happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan, or Indonesia, or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia — the new frontiers for our security are global.

“Our armed forces will be deployed in the lands of other nations far from home, with no immediate threat to our territory, in environments and in ways unfamiliar to them,” he said. “They will usually fight alongside other nations, in alliance with them; notably, but probably not exclusively, with the U.S.A.”

“My choice,” Blair was reported as saying, “is for armed forces that are prepared to engage in this difficult, tough, challenging campaign, to be war fighters as well as peacekeepers; for a British foreign policy keeps our American alliance strong and is prepared to project hard as well as soft power; and for us as a nation to be as willing to fight terrorism and pay the cost of that fight wherever it may be.”

But, he said: “The covenant between armed forces, government and people has to be renewed. For our part, in government, it will mean increased expenditure on equipment, personnel and the conditions of our armed forces, not in the short run but for the long term.”

“It has taken a generation for the enemy to grow,” he said. “It will, in all probability, take a generation to defeat.”