Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Lord Thomas of Swynnerton and Lord Shutt of Greetland

Friday 12th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Swynnerton]

The national security document is important and interesting and has some good parts, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, pointed out. However, it also contains some weaknesses. I am sure that I am not the only Member of your Lordships’ House who would like to know more about the relations between the new National Security Council and the old Joint Intelligence Committee—which, so far as I know, having read the late Sir Percy Cradock's admirable history of it, has served us so well in the past.

The document is anti-historical in other ways. For example, it claims that this is the first time that there has been a national security strategy. Those with any kind of historical memory will recall many other statements of this sort—the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, has recalled some of those statements—although they may not have had the same title. I have a good historical memory and can recall the famous 1907 memorandum by the remarkable Sir Eyre Crowe which stated firmly:

“The general character of England's foreign policy is determined by the immutable condition of her geographical situation on the ocean flank of Europe as an island State with vast overseas colonies”.

The national security document has other weaknesses, in the sense that it is full of jargon. What are the Government doing telling us of emerging economies moving up “the value chain”. What is the value chain? Many of us would like to see the Government raise the standard of official writing, perhaps by using the services of experienced writers, of whom there are some in this House, to revise the texts of their publications, as is sometimes done in the United States. The 1961 United States White Paper on Cuba, for example, was written for President Kennedy by Professor Arthur Schlesinger.

So far as I understand it, we have a number of major security concerns. We should consider these concerns seriatim and see how they can be funded before deciding what percentage of GNP we can afford to spend on defence. First, there are anxieties which derive from natural disasters such as flood, earthquake or tsunami—such as the one that occurred some five years ago—as we can remind ourselves if we look at the monument at the foot of the Clive steps, next to the Churchill memorial museum, to those who have died.

Secondly, we have to consider the possibility of an old-fashioned direct attack on this country or its dependencies, such as the Falkland Islands. In view of what happened in 1982 that cannot be quite ruled out, although I accept that the current Argentine Government are of a very different nature to the one under General Galtieri. There are, however, other such dependencies.

Thirdly, we must remember our new enemy and opponent, al-Qaeda. In the strategic paper we hear something about its activities but not much about its origins, its rise or its support. We need to remind ourselves—as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, vigorously did—that we are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan because the Talibs once had, and perhaps still have, a close alliance with al-Qaeda.

I read an interesting comment in the document about al-Qaeda seeking to recreate a new caliphate, a united government for the Muslim world, based on an extreme interpretation of Islam. The old caliphate ended only in 1924 with the collapse of the Ottoman dynasty, but it had not really exercised power since the Middle Ages. We should be told more. After all, there have been caliphates in the past and not all were evil. Consider, for example, the caliphate of Abd ar-Rahman, the most gifted of the Spanish sultans—the Spanish Umayyads—or the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. If we had a benign caliphate in the Muslim world, I am not sure that it would not be better than what we have now.

A book to which the authors of this document might have referred us is that of Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, which has lost little of its relevance now that it is four years old. It shows clearly how inspirations for al-Qaeda, especially the now legendary Qutb, were treated very roughly in their own countries. That gentleman was hanged by Nasser. I agree that that is not a justification for its present attitude, but it helps to explain.

Perhaps it is right to see al-Qaeda, in a longer historical perspective, as in the tradition of those violent movements of the 11th and 12th centuries, the Almoravids and the Almohades, both of which were inspired by Berber prophets based in Morocco and swept through Muslim and Christian Spain, causing havoc before they settled down and ruined themselves by self-indulgence.

Until that begins to happen—which, let us hope, can be arranged—we have to recognise that a great many in the Middle East, and even in our own country, look on us, Members of the House of Lords included, as “filthy infidel crusaders”, in Bin Laden's words. To see danger is not enough, said the great Lord Vansittart in his marvellous autobiography The Mist Procession; one must be prepared to do something extremely unpleasant about it.

A fourth consideration that we should perhaps consider as something which might inspire us to a sense of responsibility about defence is the concern we should have about a possible nuclear exchange between one or two of the new nuclear possessor states. An exchange between, say, India and Pakistan may not be likely, but it cannot be ruled out, nor could one between Israel and Iran if the latter achieves the status to which it aspires. In any circumstances like that, the global catastrophe would be greater than could be imagined.

A fifth consideration should be to sort out the somewhat complicated relationships we seem to be developing in respect of defence in relation to France and with the European Union. This has been mentioned by several speakers so I will not go into it in detail. In all events, we want to be certain that these arrangements can be carried through effectively and creatively without damaging our relationship with the United States. There are other unforeseeable possibilities that may affect us, as several noble Lords have pointed out. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, placed particular emphasis on the risk of a cyberattack.

When I first began to speak in your Lordships’ House, I concentrated on the danger of the Soviet threat. Along with many others I now recognise that the situation has changed completely. I remember quoting the words of the American Ambassador, Charles Bohlen, speaking in 1985 when he said that we would not cope with the Soviet Union until it had become “a country and not a cause”. Russia, however much we may distance ourselves from some of its operations and activities, has now become exactly that.

It is worth emphasising that, although we have a difficult modern world since the collapse of the Cold War, at least the threat of mutually assured destruction has been removed, and we do not live with the terrifying possibility that relations between the West and the Soviet Union might break down into an uncontrollable catastrophe. We ought therefore to be optimistic and happy about that.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, at the current rate of progress, if Members keep their contributions to seven minutes, the House will rise at 6 o’clock, some three hours beyond the 3 o’clock convention. I urge noble Lords that, wherever possible, they should keep their contributions succinct.