NATO Summit 2018

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I must begin by declaring my interest as a vice-president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, in which I have the good fortune to serve with the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, who will speak next in the debate. It is a particular pleasure to follow all three who have opened the debate because, in their own ways, they each produced a cogent and well-argued introduction. I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Howell, say that defence expenditure might have to rise to something between 4% and 5%. That would make him very popular on Capitol Hill, because the Americans spend 3.7% of GDP, although they might feel a little aggrieved if they were outfoxed to that extent. As for the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who told us about John Bolton, I offer him this advice: he should be careful of the company he keeps in Ireland.

I would like to make reference to two passages in the report of the International Relations Committee because I believe that they sum up the dilemma and the issues which will be raised in Brussels. I intend to concentrate rather more on the summit itself than others have done so far. At paragraph 18 the witness is recorded as saying that,

“the challenge of managing relations with Russia was that NATO wanted ‘transparency and predictability in military activities … [but] Russia has embraced unpredictability, ambiguity, deception and pre-emption—what it calls strategic surprise’”.

Then in its conclusions at paragraph 53, the report says:

“The degree and credibility of the US commitment to the principle of collective defence that underpins NATO remains uncertain”.


There is a sense in which I would almost take these passages as text, although I promise to do my best to avoid a sermon.

Before turning to the NATO summit, I shall make some observations which I hope will not be thought to be out of order, if not in the strict sense, in the sense of the atmosphere in which this debate is being conducted. The United Kingdom’s contribution to NATO depends upon credibility. For the Defence Secretary to be reported as having said “I made her and I can break her”, in relation to the Prime Minister, does nothing for the strength of her ability in negotiation and seriously undermines her authority. If these had been the days of Prime Minister Thatcher, Chief Whip Jopling or anyone who said anything to that effect would have found themselves in the room behind the Speaker’s Chair with a letter already written out which they would be called upon to sign without delay.

Further on the question of credibility, as a result of what many people have sought—the increased expenditure proposed in relation to the National Health Service—the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now, it is said, telling his Cabinet colleagues that there is no more money. It is hardly the way in which to go into a summit of this importance—a summit where there will potentially be a poisonous atmosphere, already referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, after the G7, which has inevitably had damaging consequences for the transatlantic relationship.

The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington in April 1949. In truth, it has by and large kept peace in Europe—not always, because we had the problem of the Balkans and the difficulties that had to be overcome before it could be resolved. At the time its purpose was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down. It is rather interesting that the first two of those things may still be motivations for what is to happen in Brussels in a few weeks’ time.

NATO has always been more than a military alliance. It is a political alliance as well. How else can you describe Article 5, which contains a political undertaking that has military consequences? It is true that there have been bumps along the way, but there has never been so much uncertainty as there is now. The truth is that we should look at treaties not as transactions but as binding agreements, an understanding which it seems President Trump does not share. The treaty of 1949 was not about winning or losing but was to create mutual responsibility and in return mutual reward. That is why the centrepiece Article 5 is of such importance. Against the background of President Trump’s ambiguity, it is worth pointing out that the only occasion on which Article 5 has been invoked was after the attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon, at a time when, if my memory serves me right, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, was Secretary-General of NATO. Article 5 is an illustration of pooled sovereignty. Of course, we are already engaged in an argument in another context about the issue of sovereignty and the extent to which we are willing, or perhaps in that case unwilling, to agree to it.

Who stands to gain from uncertainty in NATO? I fear I have said this before in the House, but I believe it to be even more strongly understood now. It is President Putin. He has twin objectives: the first is to undermine NATO and the other is to destabilise the European Union. I would argue that we are helping to bring the latter of those about ourselves and that President Trump has so far done a great deal in respect of the first. Why? It is because NATO and the EU are both voluntary associations of sovereign states based on the principles of democracy, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and the rule of law. They are a constant reproach to Mr Putin. That is why he finds them so offensive. It is interesting to note that he has recently resurrected the Gorbachev vision of a new security structure for Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. Gorbachev’s vision was benevolent, but it relied on the dissolution of NATO following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Putin’s version would also involve the dissolution of NATO, but it arises out of his ambition to be the dominant nation on the European continent.

What could better reward that ambition than the suggestion out of Washington that there may be a head-to-head meeting between President Trump and Mr Putin, either on Trump’s way to Brussels or on his way back? It is pretty extraordinary to consider the sorts of issues that will necessarily arise at the coming summit and then to go immediately to talk to Mr Putin—and perhaps to issue the kind of complimentary descriptions of him that Mr Trump has given on previous occasions.

Remember what this Russia is. It is a Russia that has put NATO on its mettle. It is a Russia that deploys nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad, and which continually tests the resolve of NATO’s air policing efforts over the Baltic states—efforts based on the activities of the air forces of NATO countries, including our own. Add to that President Trump’s ambiguity, and no wonder the Baltic states cling to the blanket of NATO membership.

One of the main themes identified for the summit is deterrence. To maintain deterrence it is necessary to provide well-armed and well-trained forces, and indeed—to pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell—to have a defence against those alternative methods of warfare in which Russia seems to be remarkably competent. That is where the 2% comes in. It will be—if your Lordships will forgive the expression—the President’s trump card in Brussels, because there is truth in what he has to say.

The United Kingdom meets that target, although I am bound to say that there is some creative accounting—and as the committee of which the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is chairman pointed out in its report, there is too much ambiguity about which expenditure counts towards that 2%. A handful of European allies also meet the 2%, and others have programmes in order to do so. It simply should not be like this, because the 2% was agreed, not imposed, at the NATO summit at Celtic Manor in Wales in 2014. Nor is it only a question of how much is spent: how it is spent is equally important. In Wales the undertaking was that 20% of defence budgets should be spent on major equipment or research and development.

Belatedly, Europe seems to be waking up to some of its responsibilities. That rather ugly expression PESCO—permanent structured co-operation on defence—is an indication of greater co-operation among the European Union countries. A letter of intent was signed yesterday by the United Kingdom and eight other European Union states about creating a rapid deployment force, in response to an initiative of Mr Macron.

The test of all these initiatives has to be: will they bring added value? There is always a risk, in these circumstances, of duplication or detachment. We should therefore be very stringent in determining the extent to which such initiatives are successful.

What would make this NATO summit successful? As I said, President Trump is quite entitled to ask European members whether they are serious about 2% expenditure as a minimum. On the other hand, European NATO members are entitled to ask President Trump if he is properly committed to collective defence. Upon the answers to those questions will the success of this summit be determined.