Russia

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests, particularly my work with the Nuclear Threat Initiative. I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I agree with much of what he said and join him in congratulating the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, on securing and introducing in such a balanced way this overdue debate on such a polarising issue.

For my part, I shall concentrate on strategic security. Since the historic events of the 1990s changed Europe for ever, efforts to build mutual security in the Euro-Atlantic region have lacked urgency. For a decade or more, trust and confidence have deteriorated, as has the security environment. In the absence of new initiatives by all parties, including the United Kingdom, things are only likely to get worse in the short term. If, in the words of the Foreign Secretary, we want to work together with Russia to achieve a better future, the first step in acting to advance our common interests is to identify concrete, practical, near-term initiatives designed to reduce risks, rebuild trust and improve today’s Euro-Atlantic security prospect.

For about 10 years, I have devoted significant energy to keeping lines of communication open between the West and Russia. NATO countries and Russia possess about 95% of global nuclear inventories, with many weapons minutes from use. My motivation is that current NATO-Russia relations help create an environment where miscalculation, accident, mistake, or catastrophic terrorism are the most likely catalysts for nuclear use. With little communication or co-operation between NATO and Russian military leaders, issues around decision time and the command and control of nuclear forces, particularly, are most acute. Magnifying the risks of a nuclear mistake is the emergence of cyberthreats to strategic warning systems and command and control. Increasingly, experts are warning of the threat of a cyberattack on our strategic weapons systems.

I commend to the House two excellent studies over a period of four years by the US Department of Defense, Defense Science Board. In the first it says in terms that,

“the cyber threat is serious and that the United States cannot be confident that our critical … (IT) systems will work under attack from a sophisticated and well-resourced opponent utilizing cyber capabilities”.

In the second, the authors recommend that the highest priority is to protect a select limited set of nuclear and other strike capabilities: a specially protected subset, as it were, to ensure survivability. The implication is that because of the cyberthreat they cannot be sure that their deterrent and command and control systems will work as designed. The significance of this for strategic stability is grave. If the US cannot assure its leaders of this, we—the United Kingdom—cannot be certain that we are immune to this risk either.

In these difficult circumstances, dialogue is essential and it is possible. For the last 10 years, I, Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and former Senator Sam Nunn and, increasingly, a wider group—a mix of senior government officials and experts from the US, Canada, Russia and 15 European nations— have been advocating urgent co-operative action between the West and Russia on areas of existential common interest. Our arguments have developed and are now concentrated on a few urgent matters. They are set out in public reports and documents and go as follows. As we did during the darkest days of the Cold War, Americans, Europeans and Russians must work together to avoid catastrophe, including by preventing terrorist attacks and reducing the risks of a military, or even nuclear, conflict. The carefully considered view of a wide range of senior political, diplomatic and military figures across the whole region is that this should include reducing the risk of nuclear use; increasing, not suspending, military-to-military communications; increasing transparency in the air to avoid military activity in the NATO-Russia shared area presenting an unacceptable risk to civilian air traffic; reducing the threat of insecure nuclear and radiological materials; and recognising that we have crossed over to a new nuclear era in which cyber capabilities transform the nuclear risks, engaging in urgent discussions for reaching at least informal understandings on cyber dangers related to nuclear facilities, strategic warning systems and nuclear command and control.

There are many important issues facing Europe, America and Russia today, but identifying a new policy frame—existential common interests—that can stop the downward spiral in relations is vital and the near-term, practical steps identified here are the only place to start.