Denmark Reports Russian Flares Fired Near Helicopter in Baltic Sea
Flares over the Baltic, Shadows over the Market
When warships play at pyrotechnics around patrol helicopters, the sparks fall not on admirals’ uniforms but on the quiet prosperity of ordinary people.
A warship in international waters, a small helicopter engaged, we are told, in a routine photographic survey, and suddenly two flares cut the air, one passing within a few metres of the aircraft. The language that follows is as hot as the magnesium: one side denounces “deeply unprofessional seamanship” and a creeping shift in the boundaries of acceptable conduct; the other side speaks of “provocative actions” and dangerous manoeuvres. We are thus presented with a familiar modern entertainment: two powers, both offended, both aggrieved, both manifestly convinced that the impartial spectator would award them the palm of prudence and the crown of justice.
In The Theory of Moral Sentiments I suggested that this impartial spectator, if he is to be more than a name, must be well informed and disinterested. He would therefore ask, not whose pride is hurt, but whose safety is endangered. To discharge incendiary signals in the near neighbourhood of a helicopter is to convert a routine military encounter into an avoidable hazard; it is to bring the chance of widows and orphans unnecessarily into the calculation. Whatever the technical justifications alleged on either side, the imagined bystander would feel anxiety rather than admiration, and would judge that those who play so closely with fire show more concern for face than for life.
This brings us from morals to political economy; for the life in question is not only that of pilots and sailors, but of the commerce that sails, flies, and pipes beneath them. In the Wealth of Nations I observed that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. The Baltic is not merely a chessboard for strategists; it is a highway for grain, energy, manufactures, and all the humble necessaries that fill the cottages of Europe. Each incident that adds a degree of fear, raises insurance, diverts shipping, or justifies new restrictions, contracts that market by an invisible but very real perimeter, and thereby pinches the future wages of the labouring poor whose names will never appear in the dispatches.
The conduct of states, like that of butchers and brewers, is shaped less by sermons than by incentives. On one side, there is an evident interest in signaling toughness, in demonstrating that foreign aircraft will not hover unchallenged, and in slowly redrawing the line of what is tolerated at sea. On the other, there is the equally evident interest in showing resolve, in proving to allies and domestic spectators that no intimidation succeeds, and in documenting every questionable manoeuvre. It is the old theatre of honour, now equipped with helicopters and frigates in place of rapiers and heralds, yet still directed by that same love of consideration which so easily outruns any concern for quiet prosperity.
We should therefore receive with the most suspicious attention every tale of “provocation” so confidently pressed by both parties. When I wrote that people of the same trade seldom meet without contriving something against the public, I had merchants in view; but diplomats and admirals, though they sell glory rather than groceries, are subject to a like temptation. To describe the other as reckless is to justify budgets, to fortify bureaucracies, to sustain a narrative of indispensable guardianship. Each side’s indignation is not insincere; it is simply too convenient. The true customer who pays for this quarrel is the taxpayer, the consumer, and most of all the workman whose employment depends on free and cheap carriage across those same waters.
The duty of the sovereign, as I argued in the Wealth of Nations, is first defence and the exact administration of justice, and only then those public works which private undertakers cannot profitably maintain. Defence is not advanced by a steady trade in petty humiliations. Justice is not strengthened when dangerous acts are answered by more dangerous posturing. To invoke the gravest treaties at every flare would be folly; to shrug at each near miss as a lively custom of the sea would be madness. What remains is the dull, necessary labour of inquiry, clarification of rules, and quiet diplomatic fencing, by which limits are restored without requiring any statesman to eat publicly the word “provocation”.
Beneath all this I discern the old deception of ambition that I once described through the poor man’s son, who sacrifices present tranquillity to a vision of future admiration. Nations, no less than individuals, imagine that a reputation for implacability will yield them lasting security and respect; they court danger today in hope of deference tomorrow. Yet the fruits most certainly gathered are larger armaments, edgier patrols, and a climate in which a single error can do the work of a hundred intentions. A flare that passes within metres of a helicopter also passes within inches of a wider conflagration, and the impartial spectator, if we would but consult him, would counsel all parties that the true badge of strength is to step back from that edge, not crowd closer to it.
From the works cited
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations — The division of labour (the pin factory) as the engine of opulence, limited by the extent of the market.
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations — The sovereign's three duties (defence, justice, public works and institutions) and the four maxims of taxation.
- The Theory of Moral Sentiments — Judge conduct by the impartial spectator: what would a well-informed, disinterested observer feel about this action?