National Security Situation

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to contribute to this debate. Some of what I intended to say survives the crime of repetition, but I will dine selectively from my thoughts. I want to make two contributions to this debate: one operational and one perhaps more reflective and strategic in nature.

The operational point relates to the allied air action over Syria last weekend and the surrounding debate about the need for prior parliamentary approval. This has been well covered today. I want to emphasise the extreme complexity of co-ordinating an allied response against what are inevitably time-sensitive targets, through hostile air space, when the retention of speed, security and surprise are prerequisites to both mission success and personnel security. In circumstances where the Government are confident of the moral, legal and intelligence case for action, my firm belief—and I think that this is now widely shared—is that they should retain the ability to act without parliamentary consent, thereby enhancing the chances of a safe and successful mission. They can answer to Parliament subsequently.

However, I would be the first to counsel that, when different factors prevail—when Armed Forces might be committed at scale, when operations are likely to be enduring and at cost, both in lives and national treasure, and when strategic surprise is not an issue—the Armed Forces are far happier when they know that they have the support of Parliament and wider society. I fear that, in the company of many friends, I have spent too much of my recent life fighting unpopular wars. The Armed Forces want to enjoy the support, not the sympathy, of their nation.

My second contribution is more reflective and concerns the wider character of the global security situation that we currently live in. My reflections are not just those of an ex-Chief of the Defence Staff; I also stake my claim as the 160th Constable of the Tower of London—a place which has borne witness to nigh on 1,000 years of our national story and the conflict that sadly litters it.

My first reflection is that the sources of conflict over time bear remarkable similarities of origin. The three most obvious are the violent pursuit and abuse of political power; the continued maldistribution of wealth and opportunity, both within societies and between countries; and the frequent and often brutal misrepresentation of the morality of great religion. My second reflection would be to lay bare the false notion of the teleological certainty of human betterment, of greater mutual harmony, of enduring and peaceful co-existence and of universal submission to a single set of rules by which the peoples of the world should live. My third reflection is on the remarkably intoxicating power of history’s legacy, a legacy we are connected to both rationally and emotionally, and a legacy which is key to understanding the actions and ambitions of both nations and their leaders.

What conclusions do I draw from these reflections? First, inevitable change, often accompanied by violence, is a far better description of mankind’s likely future than some idealised and predetermined journey to a state of universal human harmony. Secondly, I think that many countries do not buy into the current rules-based order; indeed, they feel very emotionally that it denies them their sense of historic entitlement. I would certainly include both Russia and Iran in that. Thirdly, the grand strategic challenge of this age is how we accommodate the change which is inevitable while maintaining the stability on which the continued betterment of the human condition absolutely depends.

Finally, having established that peaceful coexistence and a rules-based order are not naturally occurring, we may conclude that they need to be imposed, primarily consensually through alliances of interested parties and occasionally through the willingness of those parties to threaten or use force, but always in the context of thoughtful leadership, wise policy and strong capability. As a nation, we need to decide how prominent a role we wish to play in all this, and in making that decision we need to be mindful of, but not seduced by, the intoxicating power of our own historic legacy. If this last point is a touch esoteric, let me make it more specific and clear.

As a nation, we dangerously congratulate ourselves on spending 2% of GDP on our nation’s defence. But, at the same time, we cling to the retention of the totemic military capability of a great power: a gold-standard nuclear deterrent and the two largest carriers we have ever built, soon to be populated by the latest fifth-generation stealth aircraft. Of course I want these things, but I fear that the balance of our military capability has become the financial regulator which makes such programmes affordable. In being such, that conventional force is both reduced and hollowed out. In the context of the current global security situation, as a nation we need to do much better than that.