Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

First, I do not think it is under contemplation that there would be air strikes against Iraq. If there were air strikes, they would be against ISIL. We have made it clear on many occasions that we would reach a judgment on the basis of any motion brought before the House. That was the position that we took in relation to Libya a couple of years ago and in relation to the vote on chemical weapons in Syria in the House a year ago in August. It is for the Government to set out their thinking and for the Opposition to reach a judgment.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

The shadow Foreign Secretary knows that the United States has been engaged in air strikes—there have been about 130—and that the Kurds have warmly welcomed the contribution that those air strikes have made to blunting the advance of ISIL. To return to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) asked, if it were put to the right hon. Gentleman today that the United Kingdom should join the United States in those air strikes, would the Labour party support that?

[Mr Alexander]

As the hon. Gentleman is aware, no such request has been made. America has unique military capabilities, and we have supported the Government in their support of those US air strikes, which are at the specific request of the Iraqi Government. I am rightly not privy to all conversations between the British and Iraqi Governments, but my understanding is that no such request has been made to the British Government for air strikes against ISIL. We have supported the understanding that was set out in relation to the humanitarian mission and the use of Tornadoes for reconnaissance capabilities, first at Mount Sinjar and then more broadly. We have also strongly supported the arming of the peshmerga. I am glad to say that we have been able to take a genuinely bipartisan approach, and it ill behoves the hon. Gentleman either to suggest that a request has been made, when none has yet been forthcoming, or to anticipate particular circumstances. It is reasonable that we would be expected to cast our judgment on the basis of the circumstances at the time and the nature of the request issued.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

This has been a fascinating and informative debate. I am sorry only that the amount of time that we have to discuss these significant and important matters has been curtailed. I suppose that it is rather telling that—with great respect to those who are in the press gallery—the press gallery is virtually empty. I do not expect to read anything about this debate in the newspapers tomorrow because it will not be exciting or controversial. Perhaps the British people would be better informed if they knew that their Parliament was taking these things seriously.

As Members across the House have been saying, since 2010, we have been in a period of extraordinary turmoil. Since we completed our strategic security and defence review in 2010, fundamental changes have taken place across north Africa, the middle east and Ukraine. Nothing calls more for a really serious new strategic defence and security review than the state of affairs at the moment. I hope that the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and other Government Departments will put time and effort into producing a strategy. We were unable to do that in 2010 because we were up against the time scale of the comprehensive spending review.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who has been banging on repeatedly about the need for strategic thinking. So much has changed since the fall of the Berlin wall. All the certainties with which I grew up, including the balance of terror, have all gone, and we have inherited a very turbulent world. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) made a compelling speech. He said that we need to invest more money in intelligence and in the Foreign Office; it is absurd that we invest so little in the Foreign Office and I hope that that will change.

Like the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), I wish to refer to matters in Ukraine, as they are very serious and much closer to our borders than the important issues in Syria and Iraq. Personally, I want good relations with Russia

[Nadhim Zahawi]

At the NATO summit an agreement was reached under which all member countries have to get their investment in defence up to 2% of GDP over the next 10 years. Does my hon. Friend think that that is adequate?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I would like member countries to get up to 2%. At least they will be fulfilling the commitments to which they have signed up. Clearly, the international situation is so demanding that we all need to review whether that is the correct level of expenditure. At the moment, NATO depends heavily on the contribution of the United States. The people of Britain and Europe must understand that American taxpayers have made a big contribution to our overall defence.

On the question of Ukraine and Russia, it is instructive to remind ourselves that, at the NATO-Russia Council meeting in 2002, Vladimir Putin said:

“Russia is prepared to act in accordance with international law, international rules in the course of a civilised dialogue for the achieving of common and joint ends.”

Indeed, in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal—the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world—the Budapest agreement, which was signed by his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, said:

“The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine…to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

Those three nations reaffirmed their obligation

“to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.”

We have seen a flagrant breach of that agreement, which was signed by Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton and John Major. If Putin can simply renege on the agreements he has signed, what does that 2002 speech mean?

Russia now believes in the extraordinary and dangerous doctrine that it can intervene in other sovereign countries if it believes there is any threat to those who have Russian connections or who speak Russian. That is chilling. We should remind ourselves that, in The Daily Telegraph, the Russian ambassador wrote:

“With the rights of national minorities violated and the interests of regions disregarded, the people of Crimea found it necessary to determine their own political future by means of a referendum—and to do it fast.”

We know that it was Russian military intervention that took Ukraine. We need to be clear that there is no land link between Russia and Crimea at the moment. All that is going on in eastern Ukraine is designed to soften it up so that, at some point, Putin will come in, possibly link up with Odessa and Transnistria, and render the rump of Ukraine a landlocked country. They are very serious matters. We must make it clear to Russia that the Baltic states are subject to article 5. There can be absolutely no doubt about it. It is irrefutable that article 5 stands.

I am sorry that we have not had enough time to debate these matters. The Scottish referendum will take place next Thursday. With Russia penetrating our airspace and following our sea lanes, the idea that we should surrender a part of the United Kingdom and render it a foreign country and therefore not part of NATO—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call Mark Hendrick.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth). I will carry on in that vein. As he rightly said, Putin has reneged on the Budapest accord. To develop my argument, I will talk about Russia’s past and what will happen in future.

The UN estimates that, since the Russian annexation of Crimea in April, nearly 2,600 people have been killed in fighting between pro-Russian separatist rebels and the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine. The UN figure does not include the 298 passengers and crew of Malaysian Airlines MH17, which was shot down in the area by separatist rebels on 18 July.

Ukraine is not the first conflict to be frozen and it will not be the last. For some years, Russia has become increasingly uneasy about the expansion of both NATO and the European Union. As the EU has become bigger, Russia has seen the buffer of states between her borders and those of EU states dramatically reduced. In the north-east of the EU, they are non-existent. Many in Russia believe that the west reneged on an informal agreement in 1990 not to expand NATO eastwards. That misunderstanding or breach of trust is the basis for the current instability in eastern Europe.

It is not the first time Russia has used proxy forces to destabilise countries and create frozen conflicts. In 1992, during the break-up of the Soviet Union, the newly created country of Moldova was destabilised when its large ethnic Russian population of 200,000 people chose to break away and join Russia. As in Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists fought Government forces to a standstill. Russia committed 150,000 so-called peacekeepers to Transnistria. They are still there today. Transnistria held a referendum in 2006 similar to that we saw in Crimea, voting heavily in favour of joining Russia. The region’s status has still to be decided.

For Georgia, the current crisis in Ukraine and Crimea has clear parallels with its own conflict with Russia in 2008. After its application for NATO membership, ethnic Russian separatists rose up in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and there were reports of “unidentified troops” posing as local insurgents in Georgia’s separatist regions. Russia intervened under similar auspices, claiming the citizens’ right to self-determination, separation and Russian protection under international law. As in Moldova, the statuses of the two breakaway regions are still to be formally decided. Although they are so-called independent regions, they are effectively now as much a part of Russia as Crimea.

The current rebel advance has raised fears that the Kremlin may seek to create a land corridor between Russia and Crimea. As with Moldova and Georgia, analysts have speculated that Putin does not want a Crimea-style annexation, which would be expensive and militarily difficult, but instead wants to create a “frozen conflict” that would give Moscow permanent leverage in Ukraine. Only time will tell whether eastern Ukraine will be annexed, too.

I feel that the west has seriously misjudged Putin and does not seem to understand where he is coming from and what he hopes to achieve. In many Russian minds, Ukraine is a part of Russia. Putin has certainly reflected that view in public with recent press conferences referring to Ukraine as either little Russia or, in some cases, new Russia. He says that part of Ukraine’s territories are eastern Europe, but that the greater part are a gift from Russia.

Putin witnessed first hand the mismanagement of the Russian economy, open corruption and the economic hardships that the collapse of the USSR and market forces brought to Russia. It is with the period that saw the decline of the Soviet Union and of Russia in mind that Putin has said quite openly that he regrets

“the passing of the Soviet Union”

and that the blame for much of the past lies squarely at the feet of the west.

Article 5 of the NATO treaty considers an attack in terms of “armed force”, yet Russia is currently inciting an insurgency.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the Baltic states. He will know that Kaliningrad is a part of Russia on the Baltic sea, surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. Does he fear that Russia might try to produce a land link between itself and Kaliningrad?

[Mark Hendrick]

I think that is perfectly possible and I concur with the hon. Gentleman. I think that, even though Ukraine is not an article 5 member of NATO, it poses many questions about NATO members, particularly the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Kaliningrad, like Crimea, is strategically very important to the Russians and if the west does not take strong action at some point, possibly going beyond sanctions, the west, particularly countries such as the UK, will suffer and might enter a third world war. The situation is far more serious than it has been painted. It is at least as serious as what is happening in Iraq and Syria for the stability and future of Europe. I hope that the west sees Putin for what he is and treats him not as a former economic Minister but as a former head of the KGB.