{"id":238667,"date":"2016-04-18T18:01:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T18:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/gunboat-diplomacy-uk-is-sending-more-soldiers-to-its-embassies\/"},"modified":"2016-04-18T18:01:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T18:01:44","slug":"gunboat-diplomacy-uk-is-sending-more-soldiers-to-its-embassies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/gunboat-diplomacy-uk-is-sending-more-soldiers-to-its-embassies\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunboat diplomacy: UK is sending more soldiers to its embassies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>        Britain is militarizing embassies and pouring money into its Defence Attach\u00e9 (DA) network, despite recent controversies including personnel \u201cgoing native\u201d in Yemen and being arrested photographing military equipment in Russia. <\/p>\n<div readability=\"96.459710360193\">\n<p>A Defence Attach\u00e9 is generally a military officer of middle or high rank attached to an embassy or diplomatic outpost.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The role is described as an advisory one, but recent incidents have been beset by controversy with personnel appearing to take a much more active \u2013 and in one case, rather eccentric \u2013 role in UK military activity than normally expected.<\/p>\n<p>While taking defense questions in the Commons on Monday, Ministry of Defence (MoD) minister Julian Brazier said Britain\u2019s growing defense budget had allowed it to \u201c<em>expand our defense attach\u00e9 network, including new posts in Finland, Albania and Senegal.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said there would be increased DA cover in Gambia, Mali and Niger, as well as deputy DA posts in Qatar, Latvia, Afghanistan, Lithuania and Georgia.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dwAFlo_6o5s\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>All the countries involved are in areas where the UK has a particular interest \u2013 the Baltic States are close to the Russian sphere of influence, while the African nations have sizeable Muslim populations and varying degrees of strategic interest and jihadist threat.<\/p>\n<p>Qatar is a close regional ally and arms customer, and Afghanistan \u2013 where the Taliban has reclaimed much of the territory recently fought over by British troops \u2013 is of ongoing interest.<\/p>\n<p>Brazier said the expanded network would increase the UK\u2019s \u201c<em>reach and influence<\/em>\u201d \u2013 a key aim for defense under revised strategic plans.<\/p>\n<p>The minister said Britain is not \u201c<em>just expanding the number but also their career path and expertise,<\/em>\u201d adding that the DA training course at the military\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.da.mod.uk\/\">defense college<\/a>\u00a0in Shrivenham, Wiltshire, is being expanded with attach\u00e9 work being streamlined into a full career path.<\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<p>Read more<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/338805-special-forces-yemen-war\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2016.04\/thumbnail\/5706721fc4618839248b4588.jpg\" alt=\"\u00a9 Leila Gorchev\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>Two notable incidents in recent times may shed light on the role of DA staff in projecting UK influence.<\/p>\n<p>On April 7, a journalist for Vice News covering UK Special Forces operations in Yemen reported that the British military representative had gone \u201ctotally native\u201d to win over the locals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>The defense attach\u00e9 of the British embassy was much more active than the American. He was meeting with everybody,<\/em>\u201d Khalid Ahmed al-Radhi, a contractor working with US forces, told Vice.<\/p>\n<p>A former colleague described the Flashman-esque attach\u00e9 as going \u201c<em>totally native. He was chewing khat [a stimulant plant] three or four days a week. But the Yemenis loved him for it.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On March 16, the UK DA to Moscow Carl Scott and his naval assistant Ryan Coatalen-Hodgson were caught photographing aircraft at a military base near Mozdok.<\/p>\n<p>The UK Foreign Office told the BBC at the time: \u201c<em>It is routine for defense attaches to travel around their host countries in the course of their diplomatic duties. This is no different in Russia.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/340097-militarizing-diplomacy-defense-attaches\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Britain is militarizing embassies and pouring money into its Defence Attach\u00e9 (DA) network, despite recent controversies including personnel \u201cgoing native\u201d in Yemen and being arrested photographing military equipment in Russia. A Defence Attach\u00e9 is generally a military officer of middle or high rank attached to an embassy or diplomatic outpost.\u00a0 The role is described as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-238667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}