Defence: Budget

Lord Temple-Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Temple-Morris (Lab)]

My Lords, the defence budget is not sufficient, not least because we have no settled foreign or defence policy. We spiral down on defence before we have decided what we want to do.

At a time when the United States increasingly expects Europe to play a greater part in its own defence, we are failing America and Europe over the NATO 2% at the very time, as has been said, when it is most needed. The United States will do much less if it has to do so much alone. Moreover, it will do more of what it wants and less of what we might want.

I shall give two foreign policy examples where defence capability is highly relevant. The first example is Russia and Ukraine—and here I commend the excellent report of our European Affairs Committee of 2014-15. It should be painfully obvious that Russia will be alienated by perceived threats to its territory and historic areas of influence. Anyone who remembers the reaction to western deployment of intermediate-range nuclear and cruise missiles in the 1980s, with the almost paranoid cries of “encirclement”, readily appreciates this. Add to that the personal side—particularly important to a Russian—of the treatment of President Putin in the western media. Add to this his virtual isolation at the Australian G20 summit last year, and even the refusal of the Canadian Prime Minister to shake his hand, with the result that Putin left early. We still have the valiant efforts of Chancellor Merkel, but she does not have a helpful basis for a settlement of the problem of east Ukraine.

My second example is Iran, a country with which I have been long associated. From 1983 onwards, after the consolidation of the revolution, Iran, however difficult, was there to be talked to. A little later, under President Khatami, dialogue was positively encouraged. The main response came not from the Americans but from the British Foreign Office under Jack Straw, who made worthy efforts with European allies. But again, without the Americans this could get only so far. To deal with the hatreds and rivalries of the Middle East we must all, including Israel, think long term. Iran is a major regional power, but we have ignored her, thus strengthening her extremes. We then invade Iraq, destabilise the whole area and let the Iranians into Iraq in the Shia interest. All we do is weakly try to help unseat Assad without paying sufficient attention to the rise of ISIS, our main enemy. We again come up against Russia and Iran. Ironically, they are as concerned about ISIS as we are.

This is but some of it. Without a long-term foreign and defence policy involving Europe and the United States on more equal terms we will not succeed. This means a unified approach and increases in European defence expenditure as a whole.