Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem

I know several names but do not know off Lorington King.

Steve is spot on. It is King of the Commandos.

The SAS is the Army.

They are simply larger units carrying similar missions on a broader scale. As said, the British Special Forces have a triple level structure like the US does in @, rather than a dual one.

My notes; should abbreviations be unclear, never fear - I’ll clarify them when I arise from my slumber.

USA
1.) Delta Force + NSWDG
2.) Special Forces + Navy SEALs + Marine Raiders
3.) Army Rangers + Marine Force Recon

Britain: UK SF Command
1.) SAS + SBS
2.) Army SOF (SF Regt, LRDG, LRJG, LRSG) + RMAF
3.) Army Commandos + Royal Marine Commandos + RAF Paracommandos + RN Commandos

USSR
1.) Omega + Alpha
2.) Spetsnaz (Army, VDV, Navy, GRU, KGB)
3.) Kommandos

Alpha: KGB
Omega: GRU

Kommandos: Light Infantry units akin to US Army Rangers, but a lot more of them


France
1.) FCS + CASM
2.) Commandos Marine and FMC + CFS + GIGN
3.) Regiments du Choc + FFL GCP

FCS: Force de Combat Spéciale
CASM: Commando d'Action Sous-Marine

Commandos Marine: French Naval Commandos
FMC: Fusiliers Marins Commandos
CFS: Commandement du Forces Speciales (Special Forces Command of French Army)
GIGN: Groupe d'intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale

Regiments du Choc: Army Commando units
GCP: Foreign Legion Groupement des Commandos Parachutistes

FCS = Lineage of French SAS
CASM = Elite level of French Navy/Marine SF

Are they rivals.

A New Jerusalem Part 19

The Colonial Office remained one of the most important ministries in the Cabinet, even as it was somewhat less powerful given the gradual process of evolution from Crown Colonies to internally self governing Commonwealth states that a number of key colonies had undergone in the last decade. Whilst India had always been the greatest jewel in the crown of the British Empire, as the Cullinan was to the Imperial State Crown, Malaya, the West Indies, Ceylon and Kenya were the equally priceless stones that bedecked the crown - the Black Prince’s Ruby, St. Edward’s Sapphire, Cleopatra’s Emerald and the Lionheart’s Amethyst, as it were. What remained under the direct rule of the Crown was still considerable, but a breeze of change was gently gathering.

That was the subject of the Imperial Development Report, an analysis of the scope of the political, economic and strategic path of the various colonies over the next ten years. Even though it had been ordered by the Conservatives almost two years ago, Stanley Barton saw no pressing necessity to decisively alter its terms of reference at this point. As he had said to Her Majesty two days ago, the general approach of “steady as she goes” was the order of the day in Africa, within the scope of working with whatever course of action the French may take. Britain’s position was not one set in stone, as even stone and earth could be worn down by the winds of time and change over time, but rather to be like water - formless, inexorable and able to change its shape to whatever container it filled. It seemed eminently fitting for an empire of the seas.

The general principle which had driven Colonial Office police over the last decade had been for gradual political, social, economic and civil development towards a set series of benchmarks. Once these had been reached, and subject to strategic and defence considerations, then colonies would be granted internal self government. This would be followed by a further road map for the next series of benchmarks towards full independence as a Dominion. It had been considered that such a graduated pathway would provide for sufficient time for the education, training and guidance of a generation of administrators, judges, engineers and civil servants, modelled on the successful process that India had followed. It was an exceedingly fine plan on paper, driven by a mixture of high minded principles gilding a harder nosed realism beneath, but as in any such circumstance, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, the Colonial Office’s employment of talking animals being what it was.

Progressing the colonies towards independence was one thing, but keeping them in the British orbit afterwards was another. He was in agreement with his Sovereign that they could not be kept through compulsion; indeed, the very prospect of doing so rankled within him. The essence of Empire Socialism was liberty and a desire to cooperate as equals for the betterment of all. At the same time, these were not days of peace, but of war, both hot and cold. As such, simply giving up countries and all their wealth, influence, position and power to an alien foe would be utterly self defeating and end up imposing a terrible cost in innocent lives. They could not be held by the stick, but many were the carrots that could and would be offered - the monies of the Churchill Plan as well as direct loans without interest, investment capital and aid, great projects of infrastructure and substantial military support, training and equipment. In the last instance, a standard package of arms had been produced and pre-emptively tailored for the individual circumstances of each putative new state, along with entry into the broader protective pact that linked the Dominions and the Motherland and maintained membership of the Imperial common market. Simple material advantage, though, was insufficient, really, and the greater point and purpose of the Commonwealth was not simply to be paid, but to be an equal and influential part of the largest and most powerful union in the world. Time would tell if it was enough.

Africa comprised the bulk of Britain’s remaining colonies and was really a tale of two parts, East and West. Since the war, there had always been a long term vision for the formation of two great federations in British Africa to permit their greater economic and political development, increase their strategic value and to balance the various needs and demands of local groups. Larger entities were less likely to be subject to the malign influence of communism and turned towards the path of Moscow, but were also rather more resistant to the equally enticing siren song of Washington, which offered dollars and freedom, on their terms of course. France had dallied with similar ideas, particularly in French West Africa, but indications since 1960 had been that they were moving gradually towards a path of least resistance towards nominal independence, whilst intending to remain as the power behind the thrones of whatever entities emerged. The general consensus of the Colonial Office, matched by that of the Foreign Office, was that whoever succeeded de Gaulle would move rapidly towards a shift in France’s position in Subsaharan Africa. No, the answer was definitely in federations, thought Barton.

East Africa was both further along the general path of development towards viability and faced with a significant potential problem. The latter was of course Kenya. It was a self-governing Dominion with a white government and a substantive white minority of over a quarter of its population, whereas Tanganyika had barely a fifth of that and Uganda half again that figure. As matters stood, Kenya was a sustainable state in its current arrangement for the foreseeable future, but the political shape of an East Africa where nine out of every ten men and women were black or Indian would have to be distinctly different; any East African federation without Kenya would not be worth its salt. It seemed more likely that a looser economic, fiscal and defence arrangement could be engineered to tie the three states together as a first step, giving the political leadership time to work out what, if anything, could be done.

British West Africa lacked the geographic contiguity of the east and had its own issue in the sheer size and wealth of Nigeria compared to the other colonies. Some, like The Gambia and British Equatorial Africa were little postage stamps of countries without great prospects of individual independent development, whereas the Gold Coast and Ivory Coast were more advanced on the path towards self sufficiency. The Free Poles in Togoland threw a spanner in the works of the general plan, but they were being nudged towards an appropriate realisation that could engineer a union of sorts with French Dahomey. Further to the west, Sierra Leone was regarded as needing substantial further development before self government, similar to Cameroon. Nigeria itself was far from a monolithic entity, with plenty of references to the divisions between north and south and Christian and Moslem throughout its section of the report. Barton did not take the view of some that it was best to partition the colony, though, but rather to subsume its internal issues within a broader regional arrangement.

Only one other area lay outside of the bounds of these groupings in Africa, that of the Greater Sudan. Any self government for either Sudan or Equatoria was rendered difficult by the nebulous nature of the Anglo-Egyptian relationship in the aftermath of the 1956 War. It would happen in due course, but there was much to be done and many hundreds if not thousands of hours of quiet diplomacy with Cairo to be done to make it occur peacefully and seamlessly. The circumstance of the former Sultanate of Darfur in the west of the Sudan made for a further complication for which there were no easy solutions. The fate of the Sudan was ultimately tied to the waters of the Nile and the great railway that ran alongside it and the report before Barton kept this at the fore. His own view was that there was much to be said of drawing Egypt’s gaze and strategic interest south into Africa rather than east into the Levant.

There lay Britain’s most significant tract of the ‘invisible empire’ in the Arab kingdoms and Persia, with all their fabulous riches of black gold, and the most stridently independently minded state of the Commonwealth, Israel. Of all the Dominions, it was the most different in culture and language, lacking that same tie of blood as Australia or Canada might have, but this was merely the beginning. Unlike the New World settler colonies, it was in a well established neighbourhood with a long history and England and then Britain, whilst present increasingly over the years only became the dominant player in latter decades of the last century. Even before the issues of ethnicity and religion arose, there was enough difference to set it apart on its own. It was still a good and established member of the Commonwealth and an essential ally for its most strategic of positions, but it was a developed bond rather than a natural one. In light of her increasing links with the United States, the Commonwealth Office had recommended a range of economic and industrial incentives to be implemented, but Barton considered that some of them just seem to be trying a bit too hard.

It was a difficult conundrum, as in purely strategic terms, it made more sense to align with the states of the Arab Union. They were larger, more populous and had far, far more oil, after all. That such an approach had not been taken was mystifying to some on the face of it, but a more fulsome examination of all the factors at play - including the quite curious cautionary tales derived from Lapcat - indicated that the advantages of a full blown Arabist shift in British foreign policy would be ultimately fleeting. His goal in the Middle East was not to take sides, but to maintain a detached and fair hegemony as much as possible. After examination of the various options by CREED thanks to some creative programming, that had been supported as the least worst option, with the lowest chance of abject disaster. If certain developments came to pass, then the oil riches of the Levant would be comparatively less useful in coming decades; if others continued, then they would verily take a desert and make it a garden of peace.

At the extremes of the Arabian peninsula lay Britain’s actual colonial holdings in the Middle East - Aden in the South, Kuwait in the north and the Trucial States in the Persian Gulf - as well as the protectorate of Oman. Their scope for development was somewhat more limited than the larger African states, but they remained vital for strategic and economic reasons; their future would be a matter for his successor, who he hoped would not be in Number 10 for a few years to come yet! Persia had been starting to make noises about a change in the status of Abadan ever since the withdrawal of the permanent South Persian garrison three years ago and he was not averse to the idea in principle, unlike the author of this section of the report, but there would need to be a significant raft of conditions to any putative agreement to that effect.

The vast majority of the rest of the ‘Empire proper’ was made up of islands here, there and everywhere. The only really contentious one was Cyprus, which had seen an upsurge in unrest over the past decade, but nothing too egregious. The island colonies could really be split into three types: the regional clumps, the strategic bastions, entrepôts and the far flung postage stamps. The key example of the first category were the myriad idyllic islands of the British South Pacific, bereft as they were of substantive resources, were to be encouraged to group together in a model similar to the West Indies Federation, but they would ultimately need a great deal of support and development even after the point that they one day achieved self government. Similarly, the islands of the Indian Ocean were to be encouraged towards cooperation for much the same reason.

In the second case, there were islands too strategic to lose and these were to be dealt with in a similar fashion to Malta - full integration into Britain. The likes of Bermuda, Addu, the Galapagos, Hy Brasil, Socotra, Ascension and the Azure Islands were key bases even in this age of intercontinental rockets, atomic submarines and orbital battle stations. Their airfields made them the equal of aircraft carriers in their own right, but of the unsinkable variety. Related to that value were the few major entrepôts still under the Union Flag, namely Zanzibar, Singapore and Hong Kong. These were all major city states of a distinctly international character and growing contributors to the wealth and economic power of the British Empire, yet were too large for any formal incorporation into the United Kingdom. For them, their status would necessarily continue, with appropriate internal self government of course. Hong Kong was the most complex of them all, lying next door to Imperial China and despite the heaviest layered defence in the world, that made it fundamentally difficult to defend in a conventional manner; the Dragon was just too big. Tying in the Americans to its defence had been one of the proud achievements of the last government, and rightly so, but Barton could see no surety of the colony’s defence beyond the Bomb.

Finally, there were the little anomalies scattered through the seven seas, such as Saint Helena, Pitcairn, Nimrod, Tristan da Cunha and Easter Island. Some of them barely had any population at all, whilst others, specifically the Falklands, stood out as comparative giants. For these, no change of status was seen as necessary, as they were well below the threshold of sustainability. By being beneath the notice of the world, they would serve their part in the destiny of the Empire very well indeed…

In any event, he regarded the concept of a war over the Falklands - of all places! - as one of the most baffling features of the ‘other place’. They were too far from anywhere to make much of a difference and lacked the resources to move the most voracious of nations in their direction. Nevertheless, he had ordered certain steps be taken for their long term defence; if there did turn out to be oil down there, then circumstances could change.

Long had the British Empire been one on which the sun never set. The general measures in the Imperial Development Report would not see that change in a literal sense, but there was change coming, nonetheless. If all went without strife, then this be the harbinger of a sunset of one sort, but only as a means to a new sunrise that would follow as inexorably as the eternal cycle of the heavens.

Barton looked at his watch. Hell’s teeth! The hour was late indeed. As he turned to leave his study, he glanced out of the window into the night sky. Out there, beyond the moons, were Mars and Venus, bare pinpricks of light twinkling in the vast black.

How fitting.

No one whatsoever. The entire substance of the post is on that.