Our special forces have set us an example of Britain at its best
(Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)
It took British special forces just nine minutes to secure a huge oil tanker lying off the Isle of Wight that had been taken over by stowaways. The storming of the Nave Andromeda by the Special Boat Service (SBS) was a textbook example of how a situation with the potential to do great harm to life and the environment should be quickly and efficiently handled.
Elsewhere, the equivalent of our special forces often shoot first and ask questions afterwards. The United Kingdom Special Forces — which include the SBS, the better known SAS and several other elite units — pride themselves on using the minimum amount of force necessary to carry out their mission. Remarkably, no lives were lost on the Nave Andromeda.
The pride that we rightly take in the special forces ought to be extended to all the brave men and women who serve in the Army, Navy and Air Force. The excellence of the Services is too easily taken for granted. And even though in quantitative terms, they have seldom been thinner on the ground, let alone at sea and in the air, in quality they remain second to none.
This applies particularly to areas of conflict in which science and technology matter most, such as cyberwarfare. Over the weekend, the former Cabinet Secretary Lord Sedwill revealed that covert measures against President Putin and his entourage had been taken in retaliation for the Russian chemical weapons attack on Salisbury in 2018. “We seek to impose a price greater than one they might have expected when we believe it is right and necessary,” he said. We also know that the UK and the US have been working closely together to thwart the Kremlin’s cyberattacks on a number of high profile targets, including sporting events from which Russians had been excluded for cheating. Sanctions are only the most visible of the counter-measures taken by the West, in which British intelligence — in every sense of the word — plays a leading role.
As a nation, we have a tendency to underestimate ourselves. Especially in recent years, we have tended not only to denigrate our achievements, but to seize on any scrap of evidence that other countries no longer admire us. It may be true that our politicians have not had a good press. But this does not mean that the British do not still generally command respect.
On the contrary: in almost every field one cares to name, this country continues to make a disproportionately large difference in the world. In science, this is glaringly obvious: this year’s Nobel prizes for physics and medicine awarded to Sir Roger Penrose and Michael Houghton respectively are only the latest examples. The alacrity with which British scientists took the lead in developing treatments and vaccines for Covid-19 is another.
But the same propensity to excel applies in literature, the arts and humanities, too. Here there is room for just one example. In Dame Hermione Lee’s monumental biography of our greatest living dramatist, Tom Stoppard: A Life (Faber, £30), she cites one critic’s description of Sir Tom as “the last great writer of the 20th century”. This is no more than the truth, even if the Nobel committee has so far failed to take note of the fact. And the fact that so many British writers were actually born elsewhere — one thinks not only of Stoppard, but of the Nobel laureates V.S.Naipaul, Doris Lessing and Kazuo Ishiguro — demonstrates the unique alchemy of our language and civilisation. No country on earth is more genuinely cosmopolitan yet so distinctive in its identity.
From architecture to sport, from economics to the law, the British continue to distinguish themselves in every corner of culture and commerce. This record, which holds out the promise of even greater achievements to come, is all the more astonishing, given that no nation has given more to the world in the past. If any other people had produced a Shakespeare, a Newton or a Churchill, they might be tempted to rest on their laurels — especially at a time of trial, such as the present. Not, however, the British: we never cease to reach through adversity for the stars. That motto of the Royal Air Force, per ardua ad astra, says something about our national character. So, too, do the mottos of the SBS — “By strength and guile” — and of the SAS — “Who dares wins”. We are indeed stronger than we suppose, not without guile, and capable of the utmost daring.
Yet none of these qualities will count for anything in the future that lies immediately ahead unless we can pass them on to our children. In 1874, Disraeli put it better than anyone since: “Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.” In this pandemic, we have rightly applauded and rewarded the doctors and nurses who have saved our lives. Yet our future depends on whether our teachers can similarly rise to the occasion. The example of the special forces on the Nave Andromeda shows the value of being properly prepared for every emergency. Whatever our vocation, we all need to be educated and trained to a similarly high degree.
