Ukraine

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, it is instructive that the philosopher John Gray’s new book is called The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism. The reference, of course, is to Thomas Hobbes describing the breakdown of society into anarchy in the 17th century. In Chapter 13, Hobbes tells us:

“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man”.


The passage ends with a description of the condition that ensues, leading to, as he puts it,

“continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

Russia and China are our modern leviathans, and it is here in the West—the liberal, democratic, freedom-loving, life-improving, rights-respecting West—that we have to secure for all today that common power, whether you call it democracy, the rule of law, or, more simply, the best human condition that man can obtain while living within society.

I turn to the here and now. It is five months short of 10 years since we saw the invasion of Crimea by Russia in February 2014. That was a signal of a tale foretold: the invasion of a sovereign state, not as an act of self-defence or humanitarian intervention but as a naked power grab. It was little different from those earlier acts of aggression which eventually led to the adoption of the UN Charter and its clear, unambiguous wording in Article 2.4 that:

“All Members shall refrain … from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity … of any State”.


But in 2014, we did little. A few sanctions surely signalled a frown on the face, but as I said in a debate that April:

“Should that situation be accepted unchallenged, it presages similar attempts across the world. There will be few countries with minority populations across borders which cannot but worry”—[Official Report, 3/4/2014; col. GC 310]


about their own integrity.

We are seeing actual wars, proxy wars, wars fought by militias and wars funded by the extraction of natural resources, or simply aggression on the part of large and dominant neighbours. Those threaten more states than just Ukraine and involve despotic dictators. Russia is in good company with China, North Korea and Iran, among others. The consequences which have flowed from Crimea, and the road which started in Sevastopol, may well lead to Taipei.

Ukraine has experienced much support in the UK, and we should be proud of playing our part, but warm words, albeit with some limited hardware, are not sufficient of themselves to sustain Ukraine in what will be a long-drawn-out war. We see the implications of nervousness in the US about an open cheque book. We ourselves know what every household in the country has learned: that foreign events hit our daily lives through the cost of living and energy shortages. However, the sacrifices we make currently will appear as minor if we allow Russia to prevail in its aggression.

Asia is slowly awakening to the triad of threats that it faces. In witness to the warning from the US for months about a North Korea-Russia deal, last week’s visit by Kim Jong-un cannot have been a surprise to anyone who is observing these events. Now, whether it is artillery shells from North Korea, or, more threateningly, ballistic missiles from Russia flowing south, perhaps advanced arms, military know-how or, as is speculated in some circles, co-operation on building nuclear submarines, pacts between the two are being forged as we speak. As the Economist described it, we have a convocation of “desperate despots”, impervious to our sanctions regime, including our long-standing ones against North Korea, if Russia becomes the main sanctions breaker, which seems to be its intention with regard to North Korea and Iran.

My question—my exhortation—to the Minister is simply this: to what extent are His Majesty’s Government preparing for a long-drawn-out conventional conflict? To what extent are our own arms stockpiles and our defence manufacturers capable of ramping up production? Are we putting them on alert to do so, and to what extent? I acknowledge we have a good record in Ukraine. Are we preparing to ramp up our own military preparedness, including by a realistic increase of GDP, which surely must reach 3% given the dangers that we face?

I want to end on a personal note. I read international relations at the London School of Economics under two brilliant thinkers of war and peace. The first was Philip Windsor, who made us understand the theory of détente at the height of the Cold War when we needed to see through the fog. The second was Christopher Coker, who recently passed away. He was one of the finest strategic thinkers of our generation. In reading his obituary in the Times yesterday, I was reminded of Professor Coker’s warning against our easy assumption that increasing globalisation and trading with each other would make war between the US and China unlikely. He told us that we are unwise to presume that leaders such as Putin and Xi make rational choices. Rather, they frame them in a narrative of national purpose, with us, the West, as the new imperialists. The lens that they deploy mobilises against us. The question for us, then, is whether our confidence in our values of prosperity, liberty and autonomy will be sufficient for us to defend those values with the tenacity that will be required. Ukraine gives us a powerful lesson in this regard.