Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is a qualitative difference between any proposition of air strikes in Syria and such an activity in Iraq. The legal, technical and military differences make the proposition of air strikes an order of magnitude more complicated in Syria.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will come specifically to the question of air strikes and their authorisation later in my speech.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

rose—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hammond]

I will take one more intervention and then I must make some progress.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Will the Foreign Secretary elaborate on the military differences, as he said that there were quantitative differences between Syria and Iraq? We are talking about a process. What are the air strikes meant to achieve? Would they achieve something different in Iraq from in Syria, or are we taking this the wrong way round?

[Mr Hammond]

When I talked about a military difference between Iraq and Syria, I was referring to the different air defence systems that protect the territory in those two countries. In Iraq, the skies are open over ISIL-controlled territory, whereas in Syria a sophisticated integrated air defence system protects the whole of the country’s airspace and would make air strikes complex and difficult to deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

It is beautiful to follow the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), because he calls for a strategy and then delivers a list of tactical responses which do not amount to a strategy.

Tonight’s debate is not just about Ukraine and the middle east, because, as we can see from the Order Paper, it is about a number of reports by the Defence Committee. We on that Committee were looking ahead to the strategic review in 2015 and produced a number of papers that should guide what a proper security and defence review should look like. One report was entitled “Intervention: Why, When and How?” and in the context of today’s debate it may be useful to remind the House of the conclusions we drew. The report states:

“As a starting point the Government must articulate a realistic vision of the UK’s place in the world, its level of strategic influence and the way the world is changing as well as the identification and prioritisation of the risks to it. The next Defence and Security Review should then translate this vision into defence planning assumptions and the development of the appropriate force structure. This would assist more strategic decisions on why, when and how to intervene.”

It is right to say that in the current world we cannot have the perfect plan. As the great strategist Mike Tyson put it, “You have a plan and then someone punches you in the face.” We can respond to being punched in the face in a way that is strategic only if we have some framework within which we operate. That framework has to be a clear definition of what we think our national interests are. We then need a plan that it is possible to put into action. It is no good having a list of aspirations if they do not give us any means of acting. We then require the disciplined community to put the actions into effect, which also requires an assessment of our capacity. .

The problems caused by an absence of a proper strategy have been shown in many ways in today’s debate. We talk about air strikes, but bombing is not a strategy. Why are we even considering those air strikes? We debated no-fly zones over and air strikes on Libya, and the error we made was in thinking that removing Gaddafi meant “job done”. Instead, it should have been the first step for further strategic implementation of a long-term plan. We talk about NATO as if it was not a membership organisation but an alternative body to which we defer. We are NATO! May I also remind the House that the big mistake we make is that we regard this country as the second most important member of NATO? The UK is not, because the second most important member, after the United States, is Turkey. Let us consider what the world looks like from the point of view of Turkey. It has the Black sea on one side, Syria on the other. Turkey is the country of the fall-out of the Ottoman empire and the Sykes-Picot agreement. That is all now coming back to haunt Turkey and those around it. Let us be clear that NATO makes decisions and that we are part of the decision making.

Let us also be clear that the problems we face in the eastern Mediterranean at the moment relate to whether the Sykes-Picot agreement is falling apart. If it is, what do we do about it? In 1916, Britain was the guardian of that agreement, whereas after world war two the United States was. From what we can see, the United States is now no longer willing or able to be that guardian, so that role must be played through a restoration of functioning nation states within that area which can deliver things. Some of the states there are functioning: Iran, Israel, Turkey and, for the moment, Jordan. It is crucial that we continue supporting Jordan. The question is how do we support the countries in between to become functioning nation states? If we end up with the creation of a caliphate and that is the solution, we will be haunted for centuries to come.

This process requires not only military weapons, but weapons of the mind. Bombing is an element of defeating people militarily, but in the long term this is a battle for the minds and hearts of a generation. We can win that battle only if we have a strategy that involves our own values. If we cannot define where we want to go, we will be incapable of ever knowing whether we have arrived. If we just make a little list of things to do, we are just like a fifth-former with a shopping list, so we should clearly explain why we are doing things. Let me give one example. A week ago, it was, apparently, not in Britain’s national interest to arm the Kurds, and many Labour Members thought that was wrong, but yesterday we are told that we are now doing so. The Government must learn to explain their actions within the framework of Britain’s national interest to this House so that we can give informed consent.

I hope that the Minister will tell us what we think about the illegal annexation of Crimea, because we have fallen very quiet on that. The former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), said that it was a fait accompli. It may be that, but I would be deeply saddened if that was the Government’s starting position.