Ukraine: Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have a question to ask your Lordships. What happened to the air war in Ukraine? We have heard that Putin invaded with armoured columns. Presumably, he took a lesson from the United States and the coalition that went into Iraq. That was the greatest demonstration of blitzkrieg we have seen in military history. First, the coalition forces went in and absolutely assured air superiority. They wanted air superiority and ended up with air supremacy. Why did that not happen in Ukraine? As my noble friend Lord Balfe said, clearly the intelligence that Putin was working with was pretty bad, but it seems to be extraordinarily bad tactically to go in on six different fronts simultaneously if you want to indulge in blitzkrieg.

Even then, however, something very odd did not happen, which was that there was never an air war in advance of this armoured invasion of Ukraine. It seems that the Russians were incapable of making sure that air superiority took place; there have been dogfights since but, to be quite honest, it has not happened. We therefore have to ask ourselves what the Russians were lacking that they could not make sure that there was air superiority for them in Ukraine. The answer is technology. They are miles behind on avionics, their aircraft are generations behind the F35, and, for a very long time, we have vastly overestimated their military capabilities.

What this means, of course, is that we have the option to bring this war to an end, but we do not. Why not? That is because, as your Lordships have been discussing today, we are worried that Putin might use tactical nuclear weapons. I will tell your Lordships why he is not going to. It is not because he is worried about escalation and the nuclear Armageddon that President Biden has threatened him with. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, asked whether there is a hotline to the Kremlin. I read in my newspapers that the CIA constantly talk to the Kremlin. I will tell your Lordships what they will have told them: “We’re not prepared to exchange one nuclear attack for another because we don’t know where that will end. What we will do is hit you with the biggest conventional response you have ever seen in your life.” That means the F35, which is technically so superior to any other aircraft in the world today that it could ensure that the whole of Ukraine was completely dominated from the sky, and at that stage we could annihilate any Russian forces in Ukraine at our will.

As we have already discussed, there is no consensus in NATO for this to happen. Okay, so we do nothing. We have the capacity to win this war decisively for the Ukrainians but we decide to do nothing. In the meantime, in this proxy war, the Ukrainians go on losing civilians, having atrocities committed on their people. Quite harmless bystanders get murdered constantly, their soldiers get killed and we stand by and do absolutely nothing, when we have the capability to bring this war to an end. Why? It is because we are so frightened that Putin might use nuclear weapons.

I can tell your Lordships now that he is not going to use nuclear weapons. He never will, and the reason is that the West would be forced to react. If you allow him to use them once, they can be used anywhere in the world as part of a conventional attack anywhere, and every country in the world would be in danger. Therefore he will not use them, but we are being drawn into his plot of thinking that he might. Therefore, we are shying away from taking the action that we could, which is to ensure that we bring this awful war to an end within a few weeks with massive support into Ukraine.