Ukraine

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Friday 26th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have become aware of an interesting quote from Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis from 22 January:

“Nobody knows the exact timeline of Russia’s madness, but we know Ukraine is buying us time and paying for it with blood. If Ukraine wins, Russia’s expansionism will be halted. If not, we will be wishing we had used the bought time more efficiently”.


As noble Lords have observed, we are in exceptionally perilous times. We need to avoid unnecessary and out-of-control escalation, as the noble and gallant Lord has just told us, and get off that track of doom, but we must not be too timid either.

I have been going through my paternal grandfather’s library, which is now mine, and it is interesting to see what he kept from the 1930s and read many times. Obviously there are several Liddell Harts, but also a most interesting book by JR Kennedy. These books all drew attention to our then poorly equipped Army and its recruiting difficulties. Most importantly, the Army was configured only for bush warfare and protection of the home base—as the noble and gallant Lord was saying about our current situation—and there was a lack of large-scale exercises that properly tested commanders and supporting logistics. We left rearming far too late. We know what happened next: we were regularly defeated for quite some time and, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, appeasement did not work.

That is why I have asked on numerous occasions when the British Army last deployed a largely fully formed and supported division for manoeuvre and deployment training. The answer is more than 30 years ago. Ministers sometimes got muddled up between just exercising a divisional headquarters and the staff term “largely fully formed and supported division”. That is why I am so pleased to hear about Exercise Steadfast Defender, which is really good news.

The Government have done very well in responding to the invasion of Ukraine and have usually been on the front foot. However, as many noble Lords have observed, especially the noble and gallant Lord, we and our allies have done enough only to prevent Ukraine being defeated, not enough or quickly enough to enable the Ukrainian forces to eject Russian forces from their territory. It was very helpful for the noble and gallant Lord to explain why that might be. Furthermore, we have been sending the wrong signals of deterrence from at least 2014, and possibly 2010, by running down the British Army to meet voter aspirations—spending their money elsewhere while not educating the public about the consequences of a 100% debt to GDP ratio.

I note what noble Lords, especially the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, have said about the situation in the US and the need for us, in Europe, to find a solution to the problem. As I have said before, and as my noble friend the Minister explained today, in Europe we have vastly more economic and industrial capability than the Russians. With the Americans otherwise engaged, it will be difficult and painful, but we now have to rearm ourselves, especially but not exclusively in the land component. What systems we invest in is a matter for the capability managers in the Ministry of Defence. However, I envisage having the military effect equivalent to at least two armoured divisions with full logistic support back to the home bank. That would still be less than what we had in the old BAOR days.

In answer to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, hitherto the minimal increases in defence expenditure have not been detectable by the general public—that will change. We have maxed out our national credit card by having a good time, and many believe that we have reached the limit of our taxation capacity. To deter by rearming, the necessary cutbacks elsewhere will be unbelievably tough and there will be howls of pain. It will be extremely difficult to convince the public of the necessity—and, by the way, 3% might not be enough—but it will always be more cost effective to ramp up now than later and, in doing so, avoid a war by means of deterring further military activity by the Russians. We must not fritter away the time bought by the Ukrainians at such high costs. The difficulty is that we cannot ramp up defence expenditure and hard capability quickly—and we will not directly intervene in Ukraine in any case. Any new capability would be only to meet our Article 5 commitments and provide deterrence.

On munitions, my understanding is that we are still pussyfooting around, trying to determine by when we should have our stocks replenished. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and my noble friend Lord Vaizey indicated, at European NATO level we need to co-ordinate which country makes what defence materiel for Ukraine—and fast. For example, if it were agreed that we made 155-millimetre and even 152-millimetre artillery natures, we should build a new, fully integrated Royal Ordnance factory and task it with making at least 100,000 rounds per month, commencing production within a few months. To do that, as a minimum Ministers would need to take drastic powers to disregard all planning laws, to direct industrial production and to requisition existing machine tools from the rest of industry. If all European states were to do something similar for other capabilities, it is just possible that Putin might feel the ground shifting under him, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, described. The alternative is too dreadful to think about.