National Security Situation

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, this debate could hardly be more timely, coming as it does just a month after the publication of the Government’s national security capability review and following hard on the heels of the employment of chemical agents in Syria and the UK. I am pleased that, among all of our national convulsions over Brexit, we are, for a brief time at least, able to discuss the perilous global situation in which we find ourselves and the responses with which we might best counter the challenges we face.

Let me start with the security capability review itself. It makes a number of obvious points with which it is hard to argue. It is somewhat less convincing, however, when it comes to the “so what?” questions that flow from its analysis. I will touch on just a few of these. The first relates to the “fusion doctrine”, which I assume is what used to be known as the “comprehensive approach” in a new guise. The proposition that the UK should react to security challenges with a coherent, cross-disciplinary response that utilises all elements of power, soft and hard, in an appropriate mix is, of course, indisputable. The problem, though, is that Whitehall is not really very good at this. During the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, it took a lot of time and effort to get the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development working together effectively. The ad-hoc processes and individual relationships that went into making the endeavour successful did not, by and large, endure beyond those campaigns.

If the new doctrine is to be successful, and not just the whim of the year, it will require a fundamental shift in culture, as the security capability review itself acknowledges. However, a change of culture is one of the most difficult things to achieve: it takes sustained effort over many years and a system of rewards and sanctions that drive behaviour. A senior responsible official, while helpful, will not achieve this fundamental shift. Can the Minister tell the House how such a change in culture is to be driven and, most importantly, assessed across Whitehall over the long term?

Turning now to external issues, I sense a degree of schizophrenia in the capability review when it comes to China. Much is made of our commitment to a rules-based international system. China seems to acquiesce in such a system only if it gets to make up the rules itself. It has engaged in the theft of intellectual property on a massive scale, and it uses its increasing economic and industrial strength to leverage its own interests—not unreasonably—from a Chinese perspective. However, the capability review merely notes:

“Competition between states … including in the South China Sea, brings risks of miscalculation and conflict”.


It goes on to note, somewhat laconically:

“We have established a global comprehensive strategic partnership with China”.


What exactly is this strategic partnership? How are we balancing our engagement with China and our need for its investment with the protection of our national infrastructure and the wider observance of international rules and norms? There are clearly tensions here that it seems to me give rise to fundamental questions that the security capability review has ducked. I should be grateful if the Minister provided some enlightenment on this crucial matter.

There is, though, one strand running through the review that is both clear and compelling, although it raises more questions than it answers. In chapter after chapter, the review emphasises the importance of finding ways to partner effectively with the EU once we leave. I could not agree more. As I have said on previous occasions, our security in these islands has always been inextricably linked with the security of the rest of Europe, and no referendum can change that. We need urgently to agree with the EU a method of consulting and co-operating on a wide range of security and defence issues, and that means a method of consulting and co-operating on foreign policy matters more widely. This needs to be an ongoing and enduring process. Coming together just at times of crisis will not enable us to respond effectively to, let alone pre-empt, the common challenges we will face. The national security capability review sets out the requirement in stark terms but offers no solutions. Will the Minister tell the House what work is under way to provide the mechanisms and processes that are urgently needed to underpin our security in this regard?

I turn now to the burning issue of state-based threats within Europe, from Russia in particular. The capability review rightly highlights the considerable and increasing risks of conflict, but it is less clear on the strategy for dealing with this. There has been much talk of a new Cold War, but this is a misreading of the situation. We in the West do not face an ideological foe bent on global revolution, as was the case with the Soviet Union. We face a gangster regime that has plundered its own country for individual gain and seeks to increase its international stature and power by equally unsavoury means. How do we respond to such a challenge? First, it seems to me that we need to take a long view here. Our ultimate strategic objective should be a Russia that lives comfortably with its neighbours, adheres to accepted international norms and is a responsible member of the wider international community. It is therefore important that we continue to engage with Russia as and when we can and maintain channels of communication, even in times of great stress.

On the other hand, we need to be clear that certain behaviours simply cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. We need to be absolutely clear about our responses if we are to lower the risk of miscalculation. The bottom line in this regard must be our commitment to NATO and our undiminished support for Article 5. NATO must demonstrate its capability and resolve when it comes to the territorial defence of its members, and the UK should lead the way in this. Russia must be left in no doubt of the utmost seriousness with which we view the matter. Meanwhile, we must strengthen our capabilities to deal with asymmetric threats, particularly in cyberspace and in the various social strata of our nations. The UK has made a good start in this but still has a lot of catching up to do. More shadowy Russian actions outside these spheres will require more nuanced responses. These will not necessarily be effective in changing Russian behaviour in the short term, but the mere fact of a response is nevertheless important. Of crucial importance is the need to maintain a high degree of international unity in the face of Russian challenges, which only serves to underline the importance of the co-ordination and co-operation mechanisms within Europe to which I referred earlier.

One very difficult and pertinent matter which requires urgent thought is how the international community should approach the use of chemical weapons. We need to decide if the nature of these weapons and the requirement to sustain the Chemical Weapons Convention justify a coercive or retributive response to their use. If they do, that should be as part of a wider strategic programme of action to minimise the risk of chemical attacks and to punish them more comprehensively when they occur. One-off military responses may send a signal about our opposition to such weapons, but are unlikely by themselves to deter their use. This is an issue on which the security capability review is unhelpfully silent.

Finally, I remind the House of some of the words and phrases used by the Prime Minister in her introduction to the review, where she sets out what has changed since 2015:

“threats have continued to intensify and evolve and we face a range of complex challenges … the resurgence of state-based threats … the undermining of the international rules based order; the rise in cyber-attacks … the increase in threat posed by terrorism, extremism and instability”.

Well, quite. That is an accurate and very worrying picture of what is happening in our world. One must ask, though: how has all this affected our investment priorities in the UK? The answer seems to be not at all. The defence budget has been shown to be inadequate to meet the aims of the 2015 review, let alone to cope with the increased threats and challenges set out so clearly by the Prime Minister.

A strategy is truly a strategy only if it matches objectives with resources. It is simply no good parroting old tropes, as the national security capability review does, about a minimum of 2% of GDP being committed to defence, and about a 0.5% real-terms annual increase in spending. It should hardly be a source of great national pride that we have just avoided breaching NATO’s absolute minimum spending requirement, and a 0.5% annual increment is clearly not enough; nor is comparing our position to the delinquents in the alliance a strategic response to the challenges of the world.

We are in danger from a range of complex and growing threats; on that, I entirely agree with the Prime Minister. What is required now is not mere reorganisation and rebranding, but a programme of investment commensurate with those threats. Only then will we have a national security strategy worth the name.