Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, this important debate comes at a crucial time for our country and I am grateful to the Government for making space for it in the timetable. We will shortly be immersed in the considerable legislative agenda attendant upon Brexit and then there will probably be little time for anything else. Yet while we are devoting our attention to the Brexit trees, it would be very dangerous for us to lose sight of the whole wood. Much of our attention over the next two years will understandably be taken up with economic and trade concerns. Yet we stand at a time when our underpinning assumptions about the world in which we live, and in which we will need to trade and carry on business more widely, are threatened in a way that we have not seen for decades.

Over the past three years we have been commemorating various centenaries connected with the First World War, and the Government are now thinking about the appropriate way to mark the end of major European hostilities in 1918. In doing so it will be important to reflect on the fact that the war was a strategic failure for the supposed victors. This was not because of events on the numerous, blood-soaked battlefields, but because the politicians of the day were unable to create a lasting political settlement. The treatment of Germany, the retreat of the United States into its more traditional isolationism, and other such misjudgements, set us on the path to the Second World War and another 60 million deaths.

This is in contrast to the situation after 1945. The sustained engagement of the United States in setting up and supporting international institutions, the reduction in barriers to trade, the economic and political resurrection of Germany, and even the sense of collective endeavour in containing the Soviet Union all contributed to the development of stability and prosperity. Yet that post-war order, which most of us in your Lordships’ House have taken for granted for most of our lives, is being shaken. The foundations have not yet been destroyed, but the building is at serious risk. The threatened—and, to some extent, actual—retreat of the United States from a position of leadership in the wider world, the rise of nasty nationalism and xenophobia in many countries, the growing popularity of beggar-my-neighbour trade policies and the pursuit of amoral opportunism, particularly by Russia, have all left Europe in a state of insecurity that some had rather naively hoped we would never see again.

Further afield, the increasing muscularity of China’s policy in the Asia-Pacific region risks miscalculation and conflict with its neighbours. Above all, North Korea’s almost ineluctable progress towards a nuclear-armed ballistic missile capable of reaching Hawaii and Alaska poses a challenge that no US President could ignore. Some people believe that these problems are remote from the UK and should not concern us directly. They are wrong. War in the Asia-Pacific region would have serious and possibly disastrous consequences for us all, and we must take the danger seriously. Within that wider context, we have a continuing threat to our security from extremist Islamic terrorist groups, and a whole new dimension of conflict within cyberspace. Economic, resource and population pressures are all contributing to increasing levels of instability in many parts of the world, and mass movements of people seem likely to be a feature of the international scene for some time to come; indeed, they could well become worse. I could go on, but I have already depressed myself enough.

Of course, the world is not all bad. There are developments that give one cause for hope and some problems that we once thought intractable have succumbed to patient persistence. But what worries me most about the current situation is not simply the scale and nature of the individual challenges—it is the evident weakening of our will to combat them vigorously and collectively. For us, in Europe, the bedrock of such an approach has long been our commitment to NATO. Those who talk about the alliance becoming irrelevant must ask themselves what sort of collective security arrangement might replace it. Certainly, it will not be the EU. In fact, there is no substitute for NATO—at least, not in the near future. Our first response to the challenges of the turbulent present must, therefore, be to ensure the solidarity and capability of the alliance.

NATO’s responses to the challenges posed by Russia’s actions over the past few years have been rather slow, although they go in the right direction, and the strengthening determination to stand behind Article 5 is reassuring. To be successful, NATO needs the wholehearted involvement of the United States, and we cannot take that for granted. President Trump’s demands for European nations to spend more on defence are neither new nor wrong. Germany does not, as he claims, “owe” money to NATO, nor should the United States be “paid” for the large contribution it makes to the security of Germany—not least because it does so to safeguard its own security. However, Germany owes it to itself, and to Europe as a whole, to spend at least the NATO minimum of 2% of GDP on defence. Others also need to do more, but Germany’s example in this regard is crucial. I therefore welcome Chancellor Merkel’s commitment to increase spending to that level.

However, we need to be clear about the significance of the 2% figure. It is a bare minimum, designed to provide a clear baseline against which one can measure delinquency. It is not like some fundraising target, which we should celebrate reaching. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, that while he is right to question what lies beneath our own figures, the present Government are far from the only ones to have used creative accounting when it comes to defence expenditure.

In any event, the UK’s commitment to the 2% floor merely raises us above the level of those who should be named and shamed; it does not imply an adequate level of investment in our future security. Indeed, I argue that our public expenditure on security remains woefully inadequate in light of the present challenges to international order. We undoubtedly have first-class military capabilities, as the Minister has said, but we do not have enough of them. Our ships, ground combat formations, aircraft and people are spread too thin, and it is obvious that financial pressures within the MoD are mounting. We ought to be spending more like 3% of GDP on defence, not just the minimum of 2%. We also need greater investment in diplomacy and in other elements of soft power. There will always be arguments about how the money should be spent: about the balance between platforms, weapons, people and new capabilities—such as unmanned vehicles and cyberwarfare. But when such arguments are about the division of an already inadequate cake, they rather miss the point.

The mantra of the moment seems to be about taking back control. With control comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes the duty to will the means as well as willing the ends. Successive Governments have paid lip service to the fact that preserving the safety and security of their citizens is their first priority, but their actions—particularly their spending decisions—have said otherwise. The Minister has pointed to all that the present Government are currently doing in this regard, and I acknowledge that they have at least reversed the miserable downward trend of investment in recent years. They have made a start, but they must do more. We cannot provide all the resources necessary to tackle such a dangerous world ourselves, but we can—and should—set the example for others. It is clearly in our interest to do so.

If we are to be a great global trading nation we shall require a reasonable degree of stability and predictability in the world. Without that, not only our security but also our prosperity will be at risk. Perhaps, as we approach Brexit, it is time to remember, with Thucydides,

“that prosperity can be only for the free, that freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it”.

I hope that the Government will find the courage to make that defence a financial practicality.