Ukraine

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is worth remembering that this debate we are having is probably going on in parliaments across the world, and in every single one of them there will be different views on the outcome and what is going to happen. In fact, there is no consensus at all on what the end is going to be. Frankly, although we talk about the end, there is no end in sight at the moment to the hideous, horrible, child and woman-killing, family-destroying, unprovoked and poisonous attack on Ukraine that we are watching. Nor will it be settled on the battlefield, as the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, rightly said in his excellent maiden speech.

Of course the battlefield is important and horrible, but it is a stalemate scene at present, and the breakage and undermining of the stalemate will come from quite different sources. Why is that so? Because the battle with Russia, the autocracies, its Chinese ally and some others is just as much being fought in what is happening in Iran and the Middle East, Turkey, Syria, Egypt and the whole of that region, because this is a war like no other ever fought in history. It has its old-fashioned bit —its Somme, its trenches and all that horror—but it also has an entirely new dimension. A leading figure from Ukraine technology was here in Parliament last week telling us that the system in Ukraine, which is military and civilian bound together, is seeking to organise and manage 1 million drones. Those drones are either in the air or in the supply chain, being directed or not directed in various places, including right over the border out of Ukraine into Russia itself. These are features that have never occurred in battles before.

There is a very good article in Foreign Affairs pointing out that the entire United States arms structure is not ready for this sort of war; it simply is not organised on that basis. Nor, of course, was Russia itself. I think how Putin must regret how he was advised by the generals—advice that he took—that, “It’s just going to be another question of tanks, just like Prague and Budapest: we’ve done it all before”, but of course it has turned out to be totally different, with the amazing combination leading to a drone war and an anti-drone war too, with new technologies on a scale that simply was not envisaged even two or three years ago.

Thirdly, there is no obvious limit on resources. We shall of course go on supplying Mr Zelensky—although he will complain that it is not fast enough for him—with the equipment necessary to stop the Russians advancing to maintain the stalemate. That could go on and on, but I am afraid that any idea that Russia can somehow be brought to an economic halt is for the birds. Here is just one figure: the estimate is that next year Russian oil and gas revenues will rise by 73%. In fact, the Russian economy is doing extremely well. Our planners forget, when we go in for sanctions, that wartime is a fantastic innovator for all economies. In the Second World War, that was what happened even in Germany when it was being bombed to bits, and certainly in this country when we were being bombed. The Russian economy is well-equipped, with its dark ships selling oil right across the world. We are trying to control them but failing to do so. With its enormous development of gas sales in Asia, it is supporting the entire energy drive of the Asian economies. All that provides ample resources.

Chinese exports to the world were $3.7 trillion last year, and to Russia alone they were $110 billion. That tells you on which side China’s bread is really buttered. The BRICS meeting was mentioned earlier. BRICS is to do with Governments and leaders standing on the central stage and making a great noise. By contrast, I remark that CHOGM, of Commonwealth countries, is a meeting of peoples, and on the whole peoples are going to win out in future against the sort of Governments that we are dealing with.

The clear need in our approach is to recognise that these are tyrannies that have huge momentum. They are moving across Africa, east and west Asia and the small islands of the world, and hoovering up the Commonwealth. Tyrannies are smashed by attacking their intellectual belief roots, and that is what we have to do. We have to show that our liberal capitalism is going to destroy and undermine the illiberal capitalisms that they are practising. We can do that if we are really determined, although we are not making much effort at the moment.

We have to show that, in Putin and Xi’s other war, which is in Africa—where, as I say, they are hoovering up Commonwealth countries and invading or seducing large parts of central Africa and indeed Latin America—is where the final decisions are going to be made. That is where we are going to see Ukraine’s endless war brought to a halt. If we operate in those areas—the intellectual, the broader areas of the developing world—then the chances of an end to Ukraine’s horror are there. Otherwise, I am afraid there will be no end at all to the horrors and the killing of young boys and girls for decades ahead.