Ukraine
Liam Fox Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Alec Shelbrooke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments. On Estonia, we are not talking about the UK walking away from a NATO ally; this is about NATO defence, and NATO operations that vary over time. We work with our allies. I have recently been to these countries, and have seen the exercises taking place and how we play a part in them. We should not focus on just one area and then suggest that we have walked away; we have not.
On the hon. Gentleman’s air defence questions, of course we have Stormer vehicles and Starstreak missiles. We remain committed to delivering what Ukraine needs, when it asks for it, in the light of how, tactically, it can best be used. Operational capabilities are the subject of constant conversation between the Ukrainian and British Governments. On cold weather preparation, we are working exceptionally closely with the Ukrainians to supply them with the equipment and training that they need to get through this winter.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend in his position. He talked about the coalition of countries that have been helping Ukraine to defend itself, which includes the United Kingdom—something of which we should be very proud. Will he confirm that Iran has supplied Mohajer-6 and Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia? What other countries are giving logistical support and weaponry to Russia in its war of choice against the Ukrainian people?
Alec Shelbrooke
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. I hope that he will forgive me if I cannot answer that question directly; I will write to him when I have the facts and the answers.
Ukraine
Liam Fox Excerpts(2 years ago)
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James Heappey
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he is expert in these matters. It is certainly the case that countries have depleted their own stockpiles to support Ukraine, and as a result of a profoundly changed global security situation, everybody has committed more money to defence. Although that is great news for the defence industry in the medium term, it brings with it more demand than current manufacturing capacity can supply. The former Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin)—sadly, he left the Ministry of Defence in the latest reshuffle, but he has been brilliantly replaced by the new one, my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke)—worked hard to make sure that that new manufacturing capacity is brought online as quickly as possible.
Training is as important as military hardware. Here, too, the UK has been in the vanguard, busily establishing a network of camps to train 10,000 Ukrainians. This has been accompanied by specialist armed training across a number of countries in Europe. To date, we have trained more than 4,700 troops from the armed forces of Ukraine in the UK, and our units are being joined by forces from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Lithuania, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand. Our training offer is already making a difference to Ukraine’s combat effectiveness, and it will continue for as long as Ukraine wishes.
Ukraine has proven its capability not just to halt the invasion but to roll the Russians back. Those who contended that the support provided by the UK and our international partners was futile have been proven wrong, but Ukraine now needs more support to get through the winter, to push home its position of advantage and to recover its territorial integrity. That means helping Ukraine to replenish its stockpiles of equipment and ammunition as well as service its existing kit. It means helping Ukraine to plug its capability gap and refurbish the equipment captured in recent offensives. It also means making sure that as temperatures plummet to minus 20° and below, Ukrainian soldiers remain warm, well fed and motivated while Russian soldiers freeze without any concern from their leaders in the Kremlin.
At the beginning of August, at the invitation of the Danish Government, the Secretary of State co-chaired a conference to discuss further support for Ukraine on training, equipment and funding. At that conference, the Defence Secretary announced that the UK would establish an international fund for Ukraine to ensure the continued supply of essential military support throughout 2023. Last week, partner nations met again to reaffirm our commitment to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, and to maintaining momentum on planning and co-ordinating our continued support to Ukraine throughout the next year.
In addition, the Prime Minister, speaking at the UN General Assembly, has pledged that this Government will match or exceed the £2.3 billion of support that the UK has given to Ukraine since February. This further cements our leadership internationally and our resolve to stand behind Ukraine as it retakes sovereign territory currently occupied by the Russians.
It is vital that we maintain our momentum in support of Ukraine. There will inevitably be those who, given the rising impacts of Putin’s weaponisation of energy, argue that we should seek to normalise relations with the Kremlin on Putin’s terms and return everything to the way it was, but we must be honest with the public. We cannot succumb to Putin’s scaremongering and threats of blackmail. This Government are doing everything they can do address the energy crisis, and on Wednesday my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary brought forward an unprecedented package of measures to address those issues.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend make it very clear that however this war ends, Putin and his henchmen who are responsible for it can never escape from the sanctions imposed on them personally, and those responsible for war crimes will be held accountable for their actions?
James Heappey
On the last point, I can certainly confirm to my right hon. Friend that there is every intention to make sure that people are held fully to account for the outrages that they committed or that were committed in their name. On his former point about the ongoing imposition of sanctions against those who were involved, I know that colleagues from the Foreign Office and the Treasury will be keen to make sure that that is absolutely the case.
What we cannot do is turn back the clock. The consequences of appeasing Putin would be catastrophic not just for Ukraine, but for security in the Euratlantic as a whole. Russia would continue to threaten the prosperity of the UK and its allies, and indeed the entire rules-based international system.
We should not assume that Putin’s ambitions would stop at Ukraine. If we fail to maintain western resolve, Putin could seek to expand his ambitions beyond Ukraine and into NATO territory in the Baltics or against our other partners. An emboldened Russia would also mean an emboldened President Xi in China. In other words, relaxing our resolve would make the next 20 years on our planet far more uncomfortable, dangerous and expensive.
It is therefore to the enormous credit of the British public that in the face of significant personal financial challenge, they continue to overwhelmingly support the Ukrainian war effort. Their support sends a more powerful message to Putin than anything I, or any other Minister, could say from the Dispatch Box. Let us make no mistake: His Majesty’s Government will not falter and Putin’s latest pronouncements will not change our course. We will continue to stand up for and with Ukraine for as long as it takes. We will continue to provide the Ukrainian people with all the support they need to rid their land of the Russian occupiers.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
A number of colleagues on both sides of the House have talked about the seven months of this conflict. In truth, it is part of a much longer strategic conflict between Putin and Ukraine. From 2007, when Putin set out his worldview at the Munich security conference, we have known roughly where he was likely to go. From his interference in Ukraine in 2004 through the 2008 invasion of Georgia and the illegal annexation of Crimea, it is all part of a continuum of behaviour that I am afraid we have for too long overlooked because it did not suit us to take a realistic view.
This time, however, as the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), rightly said, Putin’s aims have completely, clearly and explicitly failed. Those aims, let us remember, were to remove President Zelensky, install a puppet Government, defeat the Ukrainian armed forces and effectively destroy Ukraine as a functioning state.
As a consequence, Putin faces mounting criticism at home and abroad. Yesterday alone we saw 1,300 arrests in Moscow, and we should give our support to those willing to make that protest for their moral courage in doing so. We have even seen Moskovskij Komsomolets, the normally placid news outlet in Russia, criticising what it called the “underestimation of the enemy”, stating that Russia had suffered a defeat and was minimising losses by withdrawing—not the sort of comments we expect to see from that particular organ of the state.
The criticism from outside has not been confined to the free world. Prime Minister Modi made clear last week to Putin that this
“is not an era for war”.
Even the Russians had to admit that the Chinese had disquiet about what was happening in Ukraine, and little wonder, because it has brought about a much more united west and a new focus on areas such as Taiwan, which the Chinese have certainly not welcomed.
The net result all of that for Putin is that he is cornered, but that is by no means a cause for celebration in the west. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) wrote this week in a very good article in The Spectator—I commend it to all Members—Putin makes threats to frighten us, but to minimise the chance of the use of a tactical or strategic nuclear weapon,
“we need to assume that the threat is real”.
It may be sabre-rattling, but it may not be. We have miscalculated with Putin before; we cannot afford to miscalculate again. He is a tyrant with a tyrant’s behaviour: paranoid, petulant and progressively more extreme. He will throw more and more Russian lives into the fire without hesitation, as so many of his predecessors did.
Mr Djanogly
On the question of calling up the reserves, does my right hon. Friend think that Putin may now be over-extending his support with the Russian people?
Dr Fox
He may be, but we would be foolish to assume so. Public opinion, even in places such as Russia, under a regime such as Putin’s, can turn. Yes, internal forces can produce a change in the personnel and the nature of a Government, but that can take a long time to happen—if ever—and we should not calculate based on that coming through, as many lives may be lost in the interim.
As many Members have said, we must continue to support Ukraine, its Government and its people with moral and political support, as the Prime Minister set out in New York; to provide weapons to Ukraine, at whatever cost, as long as they are required; and to maintain our united front with other allied nations in the free world, especially in our efforts to stop Russia’s war machine being funded through the sale of fossil fuels.
While we deal with the Ukraine war, we must continue to focus on other threats that are being posed around that region. We do not have the luxury in security and foreign policy to choose to focus on one conflict alone, and I will briefly point to two other conflicts. The first is in the Balkans, where Russia and China have been heavily arming Serbia, and where the very real threat of renewed conflict—with all the horrors of the ethnic wars that we saw there before—is something that we must be alive to. The second example is the involvement of Iran, which has supplied weapons, drones and political support to Russia at a time when few other countries have been willing to do so, and is trying to develop its own nuclear weapon. As we have discussed in the debate, we have seen what nuclear blackmail can look like. Does anyone seriously believe that the world would be a safer place were Iran to become a nuclear weapon state, or that, were Iran able to, it would disrupt fossil fuel supplies any less than Russia?
The common thread running through much of this is that we have collectively allowed wishful thinking to replace critical analysis on far too many occasions. The safety of our world requires us to do much better in future.
Ukraine: UK and NATO Military Commitment
Liam Fox Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Leo Docherty
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s questions. The lessons are manifold. One in particular is the vulnerability of armour without significant covering fire and deep fires, and what happens when a combined arms manoeuvre falls apart, particularly due to a complete failure of the moral component. He is attempting to spin that into a lesson purely about numbers of infantry. I draw his attention to the necessity of infantry having protection, mobility and its own fire to protect itself. Anyone of my generation of people in the military will remember deploying unprotected vehicles without a significant ability to manoeuvre and bring on deep fires, especially in a remote way. Those capabilities—the ability for our infantry to be much better protected, more mobile and more lethal—are exactly what we are delivering with the integrated review and the defence Command Paper, and that is a job of work worth doing.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned Ajax. The House will be interested to know that we are looking at it with urgent focus, and I am sure that the Minister for Defence Procurement will update the House in due course.
The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about Turkey and the critical, strategic import of the Black sea with regard to grain exports out of Ukraine, with some 50% being stuck there. I will not speculate about the role of the magnificent Royal Navy or anyone else in the British military, but undoubtedly that will be on the agenda at the NATO summit in Madrid next week.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
The UK’s military support for Ukraine has been world-leading, but it is legitimate for us to ask whether we are restocking adequately and quickly enough here in the UK. Will my hon. Friend update us on whether the promised military supplies coming from other European countries have materialised in Ukraine? It is essential that our rhetoric in NATO is matched with actions if we are to remain credible, as both what we say and what we do will be closely monitored in Moscow.
Leo Docherty
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s question. We are happily operating a new-for-old policy with regard to our own supplies. Further, on the rest of the alliance, there is a sense of great urgency. We are seeking to ensure that the multiple launch rocket system is delivered in good order as soon as possible, and the contribution of the US to that will also be critical. I think that the collective sense of urgency will increase as we come to the NATO summit in Madrid next week.
Ukraine
Liam Fox Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Over the last three months, we have seen a war of choice in Europe. Putin and his close allies have revealed their callous and barbaric nature, plumbing new depths of human depravity and reaching new peaks of human wickedness. Putin has shown a casual and contemptible disregard for human life and a vile disinterest in the suffering of men, women and children as a result of the choice he made, suffering and death that we hoped we would never see on the European continent again. Putin has shown a casual and contemptible disregard for human life and a vile disinterest in the suffering of men, women and children as a result of the choice he made, suffering and death that we hoped we would never see on the European continent again.
A few weeks ago, I was speaking to young people at a university in Poland. There were Polish, Ukrainian and Russian students in the audience. They were bewildered, afraid and angry about what they had seen. It struck me that those young people had no memory of the Berlin wall, the cold war or the Soviet Union—all the more reason for us to repeat to them the lessons we have learnt from history—but what we have seen comes, or should come, as no real surprise to us. Putin told us who he was and what he believed at the Munich security conference in 2007. He told us primarily that he was in denial about the end of the cold war. He believed it had come to an end, rather than that the Soviet Union had been defeated. He said:
“we should not forget that the fall of the Berlin Wall was possible thanks to a historic choice—one that was also made by our people, the people of Russia—a choice in favour of democracy, freedom, openness and a sincere partnership with all the members of the big European family.”
If that was not utterly out of line with the reality of what was happening, I do not know what is.
Putin also made it very clear in that speech that he viewed NATO as an aggressor from the outset, when he said:
“I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?”
No expansion was intended; it was there as a defensive alliance. If there has been an expansion now, it is because of the threat posed to other European states. Putin has shown that he has been more than willing to carry out that threat in Ukraine.
There is something else in that speech that we should remember, which says something about Putin’s values. He was talking about the unipolar moment. He said:
“I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but impossible in today’s world…What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilisation.”
We knew from that what Putin was like. How did we get it so wrong? We did it because we in the west substituted wishful thinking for critical analysis. We wanted there to be a peace dividend, understandably, but we wanted it so much that we did not look at the evidence, in rapid succession, in front of our eyes. We had Chechnya, with Grozny razed to the ground in the way we see today in Donbas. The pattern of behaviour is clear. We then saw, in 2008, the invasion of Georgia and we did very little. We saw the annexation of Crimea. When I wrote in February 2015 in an article in The Sunday Telegraph that we should be arming the Ukrainians to stop Putin because they would be next, I was actually described by a senior member of the coalition Government as a warmonger. I am still waiting for the apology, but I guess it will not be coming. Now, in a bizarre and horrible echo of history, we see Putin willing to use the grain supplies that sit in Ukraine as a weapon of war well beyond the European theatre, willing to cut off the supply to the developing world who will starve if they do not get it, in an awful echo of what Stalin did in using famine as a weapon against the Ukrainian people.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Is it not the case that even on the verge of the invasion, when our intelligence sources made it clear an invasion was going to take place, many of our allies in Europe refused to believe it would actually happen?
Dr Fox
That is right. I will not dwell on that point, because I do not think it takes us much further forward, but there was again the substitution of wishful thinking for critical analysis. The evidence was there that the troops were being massed on the Ukrainian border. We knew there was an intent to use them and yet in a number of European capitals there was still the triumph of hope over experience. That lack of preparedness among some of the western nations put the Ukrainians at a disadvantage at the beginning of the conflict.
A number of Members have said that the sanctions on Russia cannot be lifted until all Russian troops leave Ukraine. I would go further: the sanctions on Putin and Lavrov and the architects of this war can never be lifted. That is a different question from what happens to the rest of Russia. Of course, there must be a potential new course in a post-Putin era, but our aim must be to increase the tensions within the Russian regime by making it clear that those who stick with Putin and those who are the architects of the war in Ukraine cannot escape from the sanctions—they crossed the Rubicon; they are war criminals. On the other hand, those who choose a different path for the future can have an alternative future. It is very important that our messaging is consistent and utterly clear.
Mr Ellwood
My right hon. Friend is linking the impact of sanctions to the military progress and what we should be doing on the ground; he is therefore in danger of coming close to having a strategy, and Britain, the west and NATO must have a grand strategy to deal with a resurgent, adventurist Putin.
Dr Fox
I am always very wary of compliments paid in the House of Commons as there is generally a sting in the tale. All I will say to my right hon. Friend is that I think we were guilty collectively in the west of wilfully misunderstanding what Putin was doing even when the evidence suggested otherwise. There will be no change in Putin: his behaviour will be repeated if we allow it to be repeated. That is why I agree with what my right hon. Friend said earlier in the debate: unless Putin is defeated in Ukraine, others will follow. That is the nature of Putin—it is the nature, literally, of the beast.
I want to touch briefly on the question of famine. The consequences of the conflict in Ukraine will reverberate far beyond Russia, Ukraine or even Europe. There will be people, especially in the developing world, who will starve to death if we do not get grain stores and other materials released from Ukraine. Putin is waging this war not just on the Ukrainians but on some of the most vulnerable people on our planet today. That is why I refer to the height of the wickedness his regime represents. We must do all we can; I will not go back over the points already raised on why we must if possible move grain through the port of Odesa. If we cannot do so, we must move it by rail to the northern Baltic ports to get it out. But, whatever we have to do, we have to do it together with our allies, because the consequences of failure will go well beyond our own strategic objectives to the suffering of people in this world who have already been hit post pandemic and are already facing supply shocks.
Another question raised earlier in the debate— it was a point also made recently by the Foreign Secretary—is that if Chechnya was crushed, then Georgia, then Crimea, and then Ukraine, what will be the next domino to fall? The next one is Moldova. We still have time to avoid the mistakes we made with Ukraine by ensuring that we arm and train our allies in Moldova who could well be the next target should Putin survive this adventure he is having.
NATO has, again, been referred to. We must ensure that we raise spending among not just the biggest nations in NATO but all nations in NATO. We must make it clear that countries that want the insurance policy have to pay the premiums for the policy as well. But we need to give this a lot more thought too, because we do not want unnecessary duplication of what NATO does, for example by a European Union force. We need to ensure, in procurement, that we are not duplicating and have wise policies across NATO. There has always been resistance in NATO to the idea that some countries specialise in some areas while other countries specialise in others. The bottom line, however, is that the United States is the only country big enough and rich enough to have a full spectrum of military capabilities. Others will have to choose wisely where they spend their money.
We in the United Kingdom provide NATO with a nuclear deterrent, carrier strike, our F-35s, our Tornadoes —[Interruption.] Sorry, our Typhoons; that was a slip back to 2010. We have our investment in space and cyber, but we cannot be expected to have everything. The countries who are more vulnerable to land attack must be willing to carry the burden of those defensive capabilities. They certainly cannot continue to take a ride on the American taxpayer in the way that they have done in recent years, because sooner or later—we had a warning with the Trump Administration—there will be an Administration who are not willing to carry that burden on behalf of European defence. We should regard current events as a very clear warning to us of what could happen if Europe is not willing to carry its defensive burden.
In commending our Ministers for the clarity and generosity of the briefings that they have given us during this conflict and the very clear leadership exhibited by the Defence Secretary and his team, we have to accept, painfully, that what we have seen in Ukraine is—at least to a large extent—a failure of deterrence, because given our lack of reaction to previous incursions by Putin, he believed that we would not act. We can console ourselves with the fact that we have acted and that NATO has been strengthened not just in its military co-operation, but in an understanding of its political nature. Our belief in democracy, the rule of law and human rights has been strengthened by the shared experience that we have just gone through. We have shown that we can, and are willing to, supply Ukraine with the necessary armaments to defend themselves, and we have shown our willingness to sanction Russia and its leaders in a way that we have never done before with a major economy, particularly through central bank sanctions. We must follow those positive developments through with increases in our defence expenditure and a much clearer idea across NATO of which roles are appropriate for which nations and where they need to invest in their procurement budgets. The final lesson for us is that weakness in any of these areas is no friend of peace—only strength is.
Several hon. Members rose—
NATO and International Security
Liam Fox Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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John Healey
Of course the hon. Gentleman is right, but the first and most acute threat, underlined by the brutal invasion that Putin has undertaken in Ukraine, is where our first duty lies. It is where our neighbourhood lies, and it is our primary obligation to our closest allies. That forces us to confront the fact that we can no longer take peace and security in Europe for granted, as we have done since the end of the cold war. We must now face a future of persistent confrontation with Russia.
Ministers have said to me and to the House in recent weeks that it is perhaps too early to learn lessons from Ukraine, but one lesson I take is that, despite the gung-ho, go-it-alone promotion of global Britain, almost no nation can do anything alone and Britain is a bigger force for good in the world when we act with allies.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
John Healey
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman and then underline the point that I have just made.
Dr Fox
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I do not disagree with the fundamental point that he makes, but does he accept that, way back in 2007, in Munich Putin told us what he was and almost what he was going to do? The point is not that we have a confrontation with Russia now but that we had a confrontation with Russia when it went into Georgia and when it occupied Crimea. We simply did not do enough about it at the time.
John Healey
No one on our Front Bench or in the House would disagree with that analysis. Our response was too little, and it was regarded as too weak. It was certainly too little and too weak to deter Putin’s belief that he could take the sort of steps that we have seen in the past three months in Ukraine.
Ukraine
Liam Fox Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Following the first invasion of 2014, and in order to get around sanctions, Russia has had extensive import substitution and investment in European companies in critical infrastructure and energy—a policy of tolerance, if not appeasement, by European Governments. Can I say to my right hon. Friend, who I think has been an exemplary Defence Secretary through this crisis, that sanctions alone will not protect Ukraine from a subsequent Russian invasion? We need either substantial improvements in its defence capabilities or a security guarantee, or both. President Putin believes that Ukrainians and Russians are one people—there is no lack of clarity there—and, ultimately, he can be deterred only by the threatened use of force.
Mr Wallace
The Government have taken the position, as has NATO, that this is about deterrence and diplomacy, and deterrence does involve upholding the shoring up of NATO members with resilience and containment measures to make sure that Russia is contained should it make the foolish mistake of an invasion of Ukraine. That is done by our forces, and it is why we have made even more available, including 1,000 members of the Army currently on stand-by in the UK to send elsewhere. My right hon. Friend is right that the heart of this is about defending Ukraine’s right to choose—not what it does with that right, but, fundamentally, that if a democratic nation has chosen something, we should respect that. We are on the cusp of an invasion of a democratic country in Europe, and that should worry us all.
Ukraine
Liam Fox Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I thank the hon. Gentleman and his party for supporting our progress so far. His responsible response is very welcome, and I will continue to brief the party spokespersons as information comes to us. First, on solidarity with the Baltic states, I am off to Latvia tomorrow. The Baltic states are among the smallest in NATO, but they are right on the frontline. It is important to get the message across that we are there to defend the countries in NATO, big or small, as they share our values. It is also important to remind neighbouring states such as Finland that the right to choose is more important even than what they choose. I would defend Sweden and Finland’s right to choose. If they choose not to join NATO, that is their choice. But we should never take away the choice, which is what is so unreasonable about the Kremlin’s demand that, somehow, countries between the United States and Russia do not get to have a say on their own sovereignty. That is incredibly wrong.
We are all working for a peaceful outcome, and no one wants conflict to happen. We think the conflict would be long and bloody. It is also important that we recognise there is other thinking in the Kremlin. We can engage on the NATO debate, but I point hon. and right hon. Members to the article written by President Putin in July. In those 17 pages, NATO appears in one paragraph. This is really about ethnonationalism, a sense of reuniting a mother Russia that did not quite exist and picking dates to fit the narrative. The article written by the President of Russia should concern us all, and I have previously read such articles in other areas, and they usually lead to the most awful bloodshed.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as helping Ukraine militarily, we constantly need to make it clear to President Putin that his very concept of a Russian near abroad—a veto on the security and foreign policies of his geographic neighbours—is at odds with international law and completely at odds with the concept of self-determination? Does my right hon. Friend agree that what we are witnessing now is a classic example of the KGB doctrine of reflexive control, which is all too often a precursor to Russian military action?
Mr Wallace
What we are seeing, as the United States said, is the playbook narratives, cyber-attacks, disruption of minorities and division all used to prey on that country. There is also something else. What are the consequences for the rest of Europe of a successful military invasion of Ukraine? I visited Sweden and Finland last week. When such countries—strong European countries that are not members of NATO—are genuinely concerned and worried about their neighbours, all of us in Europe should sit up and listen. If there were a successful invasion of Ukraine, what would it mean for President Putin’s other ambitions?
Strength of the UK’s Armed Forces
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Defence reviews and the subsequent spending priorities are not abstract events but relate to identifiable threats. Today the most serious threat to British and European security is posed by Russia. With the main aims of its modernisation programme over the past decade largely met, and with a sophisticated and ruthless cyber-capability and a huge nuclear arsenal, Russia is militarily stronger today than it has been for many years. Just as importantly, with its intervention to support the Assad regime in Syria, its continued occupation of Georgian sovereign territory and the brutal and illegal annexation of Crimea, with its continued threat to the security and sovereignty of Ukraine, there can be little doubt about the Kremlin’s willingness to deploy its military strength in pursuit of its national agenda.
If, in the face of that threat, we are to have a nuclear deterrent, as I believe we must, it must be credible. The increase in the warhead cap to 260 needs to be seen in the context of the French having declared numbers of around 300, the United States 3,800 and Russia some 6,800. I congratulate the Defence Secretary and his ministerial team on having the courage to take this decision.
Russia’s gangster regime under Vladimir Putin has poisoned and murdered opponents on its own territory and overseas, including on UK soil. It carries out a range of hostile activities, including information warfare and cyber-attacks aimed at democratic western states. In July, the United States, Britain and Canada accused a Russian hacking group linked to Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service of trying to steal covid-19 vaccine research. So it is right that we increase investment in our own cyber-capability. However, cyber-attacks are the tip of the iceberg in Russia’s persistent attempts to penetrate western security, institutions and infrastructure, and it is sadly aided and abetted in some of its strategy by the policy of some of our own allies. I refer in particular to the German attitude towards the Nord Stream 2 project. That pipeline is a Russian geopolitical project intended to divide Europe and weaken European energy security. As President Biden put it, Nord Stream 2 is “a bad idea” for Germany, for Ukraine, and for our central and eastern European allies and partners.
We face many other Russian threats, including to undersea cables, that we simply do not have time to consider today, but the most urgent is the continued Russian aggression towards Ukraine. Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine in 2014, which was planned in advance, resulted in around 10,000 fatalities and over 23,000 people wounded, according to the UN. Over 1.5 million residents of Crimea and Donbass are now internally displaced persons after being compelled to leave their homes—and this on the edge of Europe. Today, large Russian military movements towards the eastern Ukraine border have been widely reported, including the movements of Iskander short-range missiles.
We must act with our allies now to stop Russian aggression before the situation spins out of control, as it so easily could. That is what our political, economic and military strength is for; that is what the Government’s priority must be.
Integrated Review: Defence Command Paper
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I know that the hon. Gentleman comes with good experience of the armed forces, and he will also know the real balance that I have to strike, both as a leader and now in this job as Secretary State for Defence. Yes, people are our most important asset, but protecting them is our most important duty, and we have to get that balance right. It is no good being over-ambitious in deploying them if we cannot support them. Yes, the threat can change—absolutely it can change. In 2035, I will not be in this job, but the person who is should be able to come to this House and increase the size of the armed forces, should that be required. They should be free to make that decision, and I would certainly support anyone who did that, if they demonstrated what the threat was. Threat goes up and threat evolves, and in the past we have been too slow to follow the threat because we have been following either more shallow arguments or promises that were never kept.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there has been a lot of uninformed hysteria in reaction to the announcement that we are increasing the cap on our number of warheads? If we are to have a nuclear deterrent, it must be credible. I appreciate the sensitivity of the subject, but with a number of warheads always having to be serviced, a cap of 180 is not credible. That is especially true if we see the debate in context: the French have around 300 warheads; the United States 3,800; and the Russians 6,800. More than half the nuclear weapons in the world are Russian at a time when Russia has shown its aggressive intent on other countries.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is nothing in what he has said that I disagree with. Let us put it in context. Of the declared nuclear powers, we have the lowest stockpile. We need to keep it credible. I fully respect people who do not want a nuclear deterrent or who are in favour of unilateral disarmament, but if people believe that a nuclear deterrent has helped to keep peace in this country and around Europe for 50 years, then we must make sure that it is credible. Not to do so is to make a laughing stock of the whole thing.
Middle East: Security
Liam Fox Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments. Our support for the US is not unquestioning at all; we talk to our allies a lot. Indeed, I talked to my US counterpart about being told in advance and not being told in advance; I have those discussions. We are friends and allies, but we are critical friends and allies when it matters. We are also focused on Iraq, which is on the frontline of both Iranian meddling and Daesh attacks on a daily basis. That is why we have been invited into Iraq by the sovereign Government at the moment to try to help build their capacity to help them defend themselves. That is the most important thing for us at this moment in time; the Iraqi people are at great risk of both Iranian militia antagonism and Daesh. We will be speaking to them and we are continually trying to get them to say that it is in their best interest for us to remain, but we will respect Iraqi sovereignty. If they require us to leave, that is their right and we will respect it. Interestingly, no one has yet asked in the media why an Iranian general felt it was his job to parade around Iraq, given that Iran is not invited into Iraq’s affairs.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend; General Soleimani carried out Iran’s proxy wars, from the horrors in Yemen to the support for the bloody Assad regime. He was a key ally of Hezbollah and its terror networks. He did all of these things as a central figure in the Iranian regime, if not as its No. 2. I say to my right hon. Friend that we need to accept that the JCPOA has, in effect, been dead since the American withdrawal and we need to look for a more comprehensive agreement in the broader region if we are to maintain stability in that broader region, in the wider global interest.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend is right about the behaviour of the Quds Force—the revolutionary guard—over the years. Plenty of voices and decent people in Iran seek a way out for the Government and the people of Iran, whereby they move back to a normal position of international respect. These people are trying and have tried—certainly, when we visited they tried—to get away from the principlists, the hardliners, who have been running the country into the ground and making it a pariah state. Soleimani was one of the people who enabled those hardliners to create the pariah state they are in now. The balance we need is to ensure that those people seeking the right path are either empowered or heard, and are not snuffed out by the revolutionary guard. I fear that in the past 12 months the revolutionary guard, under Soleimani and his gang, has had the upper hand, meaning that those moderate voices have been snuffed out to the extent that the supreme leader and others are not at the moment interested in finding an alternative. Our job is to persuade them that there is an alternative.