It hasn’t always
been as strong as the avowed pacifism of Gwynfor, but pacifism has long been a
strong thread in the national movement in Wales. Opposition to WMD comes naturally to most of
us; but it’s stronger than that. Even
amongst those who are not outright pacifists, there has long been an opposition
to foreign military adventures, including most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a demand for a
reduction in military expenditure.
Until comparatively
recently, one of the core arguments put forward by nationalists was that an
independent Wales would spend much less on armaments and armed forces as a
proportion of GDP, and therefore have more resources available for peaceful
purposes.
More recently,
however, the apparent support given by MPs from all four parties to the proposed Defence
Academy at St Athan, and the support apparently offered by the Welsh
Government for both that scheme and the expansion of UAV testing at Aberporth
were something of a surprise and a disappointment, as was the argument put
forward by some in 2010 that Wales should have its ‘fair share’ of military
expenditure.
The ambivalence has
come to the fore again over the past couple of weeks with the discussions over
cuts to the size of the UK’s
Armed Forces. The outcome seems to have
been opposition to any cuts to ‘Welsh’ units.
That seems to me to be mistaken, and a result of some confused thinking.
There is inconsistency here. If we want to
spend less on ‘defence’, then job cuts are inevitable. Preservation of all historic regiments cannot
be reconciled with a reduction in the total number of those regiments. It’s no use calling for swords to be turned
into ploughshares if we then oppose the closure of the sword factory because it
will lose jobs.
The challenge is
not to protect what is but to build what should be; the demand should be for
the savings to be used to create new jobs and industries, not for the
preservation of remnants of an imperial past.
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