Ukraine: Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this more substantial debate on Ukraine and thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for securing it. Occasional Questions or short responses to government Statements do not really allow time to come properly to terms with what is happening in this war. Moreover, I sense that the understandable fascination with the military—including nuclear—aspects of the conflict does not really do justice to all its strategic complexity.

To a military mind, the conflict in Ukraine conforms to much of the thinking of the Government’s recent integrated review. In a tactical sense, the conflict has crossed the threshold of formalised warfare and is now quite clearly both brutal and horrific. However, for the moment, at least, it is a war that is limited by both geography and the means employed. Keeping it that way must be one of the primary aims of international policy.

The situation in Ukraine also represents the tactical military dimension of a wider strategic conflict between Russia and those elements of the international community that support an established set of rules and values. That strategic conflict is not geographically limited and embraces a wide variety of what we call “attack vectors”, including, though not limited to, cyber, energy, food, economic sanctions, misinformation, political assassination and proxy terrorism.

I will offer three observations. First, in a military sense, we cannot afford to either win or lose the tactical battle. To attempt to win risks the military escalation that we must seek to avoid, while to lose risks a strategic moral defeat. We must, however, do more to keep Ukraine in the fight, since I fear that Russia still maintains an advantage in the means of production to sustain industrial-level warfare.

Secondly, the more difficult conflict is the strategic one: the one of international resilience in the face of the non-kinetic dimensions of the confrontation. That is also one that I worry Putin might still think he can win—or at least create the circumstances for an advantageous peace.

Thirdly, given that the non-kinetic dimensions of this conflict are not by-products of war but are most definitely the primary vectors of strategic attack, where is the Government’s strategic narrative that explains this to the British people and demands of them the necessary sacrifices? I worry that wider society is currently completely confused by a set of toxic debates about Covid, Brexit and government economic incompetence, when the most significant factor in play in the cost of living crisis is that we are actually at war—but not a war of a variety that most people recognise.