Russia’s Grand Strategy

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, but it is not going to happen, for this reason: President Biden is not the sort of President who is ever going to do it. He is a weak President and he is not going to suddenly elect Ukraine into NATO. We all know that, and that is the reality. We should let Ukraine into NATO only if we are prepared to fight for it, if we are prepared to spill American and British blood for the frozen steppes of eastern Ukraine, and nobody wants to do that. By the way, if we did do it, we would lose our nerve very quickly. Look at Iraq. Look at Afghanistan. After a few years, if there were just 300 dead British soldiers there would be tremendous pressure in this House of Commons to withdraw. Russia would simply stay—it does not mind if it has to wait 20 or 30 years. So it is never going to happen. Ukraine is never going to join NATO, and if it did join NATO it would be potentially disastrous. In talking about Ukraine joining NATO, we are simply playing Putin’s game.

Now, the other talk we have had is about Russia being a mortal threat to our country, but this is not the Soviet Union. Russian armies are not placed in the middle of east Germany. Where is this mortal threat? We hear about all this hacking. No doubt Russia hacks. No doubt it has rather ineffective campaigns on Twitter. Are we so lacking in our faith in our own parliamentary democracy that we think we are going to be overthrown or are under threat from President Putin? This is not a strategic interest of the United Kingdom. Of course all Russian Governments will seek to extend their influence. Any Russian Government will be mortally opposed to NATO expanding eastwards. This rotten Russian Government might try to subvert aspects of our life, but why do we not have self-confidence? Why do we not look to our own proper strategic interests? We have no historic or strategic interest as a country in Crimea or eastern Ukraine. We do not understand it. We do not understand the history. We do not understand the complexities of the region. We do not understand the Ukrainian state itself, which is divided.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No, I have given way three times already.

Ukraine is divided. The second-largest party in Ukraine is a pro-Russian party. It ranks very high on the corruption index. When it controlled eastern Ukraine, it did everything it could to deny autonomy to Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine. Members can agree with me or not, but they have to understand that that is the point of view of many Russian people, and they are entitled to their view as much as we are.

Learn from history: look at Afghanistan. Look at Iraq. We in the west are not prepared to fight for these people. Why are we destabilising the region by pretending we are when we know perfectly well—everybody in this Chamber knows perfectly well—that we are not prepared to risk a drop of British blood? We have to live with this Russian Government. We have to stop talking about expanding eastwards. We have to stop playing Putin’s game.

I know this is realpolitik. I know it is not redolent of great liberal imperialist speeches about how we must make the world safe for democracy, and that the Iraqi people, the Afghan people or the Ukrainian people have a right to live under a democratic regime. What nonsense I am talking—these are the facts of life. This is realism. Are we really prepared to muck up eastern Ukraine in the same way we have mucked up Iraq and Afghanistan?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the SNP in what has been a good debate. I commend the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for securing it and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. We have heard a number of very thoughtful contributions, and I hope to reflect some of them in my remarks.

The first thing we need to stress is that not a single one of the contributions has been Russophobic in any sense. None of us, of any political persuasion, has any difficulty with the Russian people or quarrel with them. I have a number of connections to Russia—my grandpa was on the Arctic convoys, which were mentioned earlier; and Scotland and Russia share a patron saint in Saint Andrew. We all of us have deep personal connections to that fascinating country and those wonderful people. However—I was struck by this point a couple of times during the debate—in the same way as at the end of the second world war Germany’s defeat was also Germany’s liberation, the problems begin and end with the regime in Moscow, and the first victims of that regime are the people of Russia themselves.

This is a kleptocratic authoritarian regime that oppresses and impoverishes its own people. It treats minorities, especially LGBT minorities, appallingly. It imprisons, harasses and poisons journalists and democratic activists. It keeps the population in fear of the other at home and of us in the wider world. The fact that fear of invasion and war regularly tops the concerns of the people of Russia—opinion poll after opinion poll should give us pause—means that a successful disinformation campaign has been waged against the people of Russia by their own Government, to keep that regime in post.

Abroad, we see that pattern of behaviour, which is always testing boundaries and exploiting weaknesses, territorially in Russia’s near abroad, in central Asia, Belarus, the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Baltic states and Ukraine—just wait until the Arctic gets going, because we have seen a number of worrying developments there as well. We also see more thematic interference by the Russian regime in the internal affairs of other countries elsewhere. We see that in exporting corruption; exploiting weaknesses in transparency and the checks and balances of domestic systems; manipulating energy markets, causing social unrest in various places; and the weaponisation of disinformation, used to foment unrest and to sow political discord, taking over elements of domestic politics. We have seen that in a number of European countries, in the States and here.

What to do? We have heard a number of analytical points, but I would like to take some action points away from the debate. To my mind, defence needs to be discussed in much closer connection with resilience. Resilience is about resilient societies and informed democracies. Informed and prosperous democracies are less vulnerable—more resilient—to the sorts of tactics used by the Russian regime to destabilise its neighbours and those elsewhere. The fact is that the law is simply not where it needs to be for the UK’s resilience and integrity in democracy, political financing and resistance to disinformation. I include Scotland in that, because many of the laws concerned are reserved to this place.

Resilience begins at home, so credibility and integrity matter. I made the point earlier to the Foreign Secretary that, in the eyes of Moscow, her credibility is undermined by the reality that far too many politicians—I will not name a political party—are in hock to dirty Russian money. Members of the other place have bought their seats in the legislature of these islands. I am an SNP politician, so I have a clear constitutional agenda, but I do not want our nearest ally, closest friend and best neighbour to have a weak and vulnerable democracy, and I believe that it does.

Two credible reports—the Foreign Affairs Committee’s “Moscow’s Gold” and the Intelligence and Security Committee’s “Russia” report—have not been taken remotely seriously enough by this Administration. I do not blame the Minister personally for that, but this Administration need to take the recommendations in those reports a damn sight more seriously than they have, because weakness in resilience and integrity will be exploited by the Russian regime.

The SNP has a clear constitutional agenda. We have a different world view from many right hon. and hon. Members of this House, but above all else we are democrats. We believe in the peaceful resolution of democratic processes, and we believe in the rule of law at home and abroad. An SNP Minister will never talk about resiling from an international commitment in a “specific and limited way”—a phrase that should live on in infamy. How can we possibly say that we are credible abroad when we are weakening the rule of law at home? We believe in the importance of the rule of law and also in the importance of the international rules-based order, which matters more to smaller states than to bigger ones. We have a clear interest, because Russia is a threat. The Russian regime is a threat to the international rules-based order, to the territorial integrity of other states and to the internal workings of our friends and allies. We have a common agenda in facing it down, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments later.