Soft Power and Conflict Prevention

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, warmly congratulate the most reverend Primate, and I adopt his challenge to future Governments in relation to adding a soft-power component to the coming SDSR. I note what he says about the role of the Anglican Church, and I only regret that in a spirit of ecumenicalism—I can say this as a Welsh Baptist—he did not also mention the role of the Roman Catholic Church, as I have had the remarkable experience of watching the work of Archbishop Hurley in South Africa and of being with the Catholic Church in Argentina, during the troubles in Central America and on refuse tips in the Philippines. Watching the reconciliation work of that church together with the Anglican Church, I think the churches have overall made a remarkable contribution.

The most reverend Primate is right to focus our attention on soft power and the possibility of non-military options. As he said, much of the same ground is covered in the Select Committee report that was published in March. The Select Committee, faithful to its remit, accepted Professor Joseph Nye’s definition:

“Soft power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment”.

I understand that a debate on the report was scheduled for Monday week but then postponed—rather like the number 23 bus, they do not come and then they all come together. It was a most stimulating introduction, as was the report, and when we come to the debate on the report, I will say that I detect some of the fingerprints of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, notably—I speak as a former chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association—in perhaps overplaying the potential of the Commonwealth and underplaying the potential of the European Union.

By contrast, the most reverend Primate seeks to cover a wider area, including non-military options. For example, that phrase would extend to the current sanctions regime against Russia over its conduct in Ukraine. The West will not risk war but has imposed sanctions, and are not sanctions war by another means? Have they been effective? Coupled with the fall in oil prices, the sanctions have imposed major damage on the Russian economy, with the fall of the rouble, the decline in investment and Russia’s cancellation of the South Stream pipeline. There have been other examples of sanctions leading to a loss of confidence and trust—I refer, of course, to Iran and to the fall of apartheid in South Africa. There was of course an insurgency, but instruments such as the sports boycott and the decision of Chase Manhattan Bank in 1986 not to roll over its loans to South Africa had a major influence. As with Russia, as the most reverend Primate said, that shows the importance of having private sanctions alongside official ones.

We should also recognise that early military intervention can prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. After the Rwanda genocide in 1994, when, it is said, over 800,000 people were killed between March and June, the Carnegie Foundation commissioned a simulation exercise from West Point which concluded that, had a small number of troops intervened at the beginning, that might have prevented the looming catastrophe.

I offer a few reflections. First, soft power is a useful instrument for analysis, but there is no simple gradation towards sanctions and military intervention. In short, there is a power spectrum, and it is very difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of our major soft power tools. Obviously, those include DfID, the FCO, the British Council and the BBC World Service. So far as the British Council is concerned, I saw at first hand the quality of its work in intervening, particularly with the black population, during the apartheid years in South Africa. On the BBC World Service, I recall dining once with President Kaunda, who was far more up to date on UK internal affairs than I was, as I had been travelling and he listened to the BBC World Service. I was once in the middle of the Sahara when my host rushed out when his watch alarm went off. Why? “Because it is the one o’clock news on the BBC World Service”, he said, “and it’s the purest Arabic I’ve ever heard”.

To take a few simple examples, the 2012 Olympics told our British story to the world in the opening and closing ceremonies. How do we evaluate the effect of that? Manchester United claims to have 108 million followers in China—more than the membership of the Chinese Communist Party. So what? Will that lead to people buying British goods? Will it influence Chinese foreign policy? Finally, “Downton Abbey” has a worldwide audience. Will British values thus be carried abroad, or does the England of country houses rather than technological advances divert attention from our real interest—the real British story?

Thus, we should recognise that there is a spectrum—a public and a private contribution. Our development NGOs, often co-financed by government, reach parts of the world which government cannot—rather like Heineken. In the Middle East, the work of people such as my noble friend Lord Stone in building up networks between UK supermarkets and Palestinian exporters is an excellent contribution to the infrastructure of peace. Ultimately, however, if there is a settlement, military monitors will be needed. We have many strengths across the spectrum as regards our cultural and military weight. In that sense, we are rivalled only by France and China; the US has different strengths.

My second reflection is that some countries, such as Norway, Canada and Ireland, pride themselves on their expertise in soft power; our self-image is different. Perhaps I should leave the inventory of our assets to the debate on the Select Committee report, but I say in passing that I am puzzled by the omission from the report of the role that we play in the Council of Europe, which is the main forum for human rights in Europe and whose court—the European Court of Human Rights—has been heavily influenced by British lawyers. I shall not spell out the dangers of the Government separating us from the court and the effect on our influence in Europe and beyond. I can leave that to the former Attorney-General, Mr Dominic Grieve, and his withering criticism of government policy as regards the ECHR.

My third reflection is that it is right for churchmen to force us to ask us difficult questions—in effect, to be troublemakers, as Elijah was to Ahab. They should make us ask questions such as: is there a way other than war? Have we made the military option the last resort? I have seen the contributions of Christian men and women worldwide in combating poverty and the need to build a human infrastructure. However, perhaps the “professional deformation” of churchmen is to say to themselves that love conquers all and to ignore the necessity from time to time, ultimately, of the military option. Often, too, soft power works best when buttressed by hard power in the background. Obviously, the end of communism in Europe involved a subtle interplay of hard and soft power. Increasingly, development agencies are forced to recognise the linkage between development and security, as we have seen very much in Afghanistan. However, that is a debate for another day.

Fourthly, and finally, what are the implications for us? The starting point is perhaps the Delphic oracle’s “Know thyself”, or, as the most reverend Primate put it, “Who are we?”. At a time of austerity and military draw-down our power is no longer mainly exercised through military strength. We have, however, from history—from who we are—a unique range of assets to influence others. Perhaps the adjustment to a new role is more difficult for us, with the burden of a glorious past and the temptation to nostalgia. The new means of influence is surely through partnerships; unilateral action, such as over the Falklands, is no longer possible. We should avoid nationalist temptations —for example, the siren voices that influence the Government over the European Court of Human Rights. We should play to our strengths, which include the English language and the new diaspora in our midst. For example, have the Government seriously thought of encouraging people from the diaspora communities in our midst to go abroad to their countries of origin? For example, people from Turkish communities, who have learnt perfect English in our schools, could go for a year as assistants to Turkey; it would be good for them in improving their Turkish, and good for us in spreading the influence of our culture and values. The new diaspora in our midst is one of the many new assets we have.

We should seek creative ways of rebalancing soft, hard and smart power—using, as effectively as we can all our assets, mostly now in partnership with like-minded countries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government have already invested in considerable preparations for the next NPT review. I take the opportunity to answer the question asked earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. The Government have decided to accept Austria’s invitation to attend the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, which will get under way this weekend. The UK will be represented by Mrs Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque, the UK’s ambassador to Austria and permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. I hope that is welcome news to all concerned.

In his opening, the most reverend Prelate talked about the importance of narrative. It is very important, with soft power, to talk about the importance of ideas. We all know that ideas shape the world in the long run, be they Christianity, Islam, the Enlightenment, communism, nationalism, fascism, or whatever; and radical Islam is now replacing the attractions of secular ideologies across the Middle East. We certainly need to think about our counternarrative. The traditional western and Anglo-Saxon narrative has been about open society, limited government, civil society, tolerance and human rights. The Reformation and beyond and the importance of non-conformity were not entirely appreciated by the Church of England in the 17th century, but it accepted them in the 19th century. I declare an interest as a member of the Liberal Party, which grew out of the alliance between the Whigs and the non-conformists.

We need to have a debate on what our national narrative now is. The other week I was in a seminar, off the record, with a fairly senior Conservative MP who said, “We can’t discuss the SDSR until we’ve decided who we are and where we think we are in the world—and we don’t know”. That is a real problem, and we all recognise that that is part of our problem. We need to get back to the question of what Britain is about. We have several contradictory narratives at the present moment. The excellent report on soft power produced by the British Academy earlier this year called itself something like the power of attraction—and that is fine, but, actually, the power of attraction means that we have enormous numbers of people of all backgrounds and levels of attainment wanting to come and live in Britain, which is something that we know many of our public no longer want to have. They want Britain to be a rather more closed society.

Part of our open society is that we accept that foreigners can buy whatever they want in Britain, and part of the popular reaction against globalisation in Britain is a sense that somehow we are losing our own country. So there is popular disillusionment with rapid change and continuing immigration. That suggests that politicians, churchmen and public intellectuals need to open a much more active debate about national identity. Gordon Brown as Prime Minister made one or two speeches on this, but we need to think about where we go from here. I am a member of the advisory board on the commemoration of World War I, and part of what we are trying to do through the programme of commemoration is to remind people where we came from. We did not stand alone; the Commonwealth, particularly the Indian Army, the West Indies Regiment and others, were all part of where we evolved from, into the multiracial society we are today.

Of course, it is also a matter of a national narrative and a sense of national identity that is changing and developing. Yesterday, I had an argument with a young woman, an official from the Foreign Office, who was being a little rude about the attitude to women in developing countries, and I reminded her that 75 years ago attitudes to women in this country were also pretty backward-looking from our current perspective. The transformation of the role and status of women over the past two to three generations in Britain and the other western states has been one of the most wonderful things that we have developed. Now we are trying to transfer those new British values to the rest of the world, and we recognise that the role of women is one of the keys to economic and social development—and also, incidentally, to population limitation. I pay tribute to the Foreign Secretary and the International Development Secretary for the work that they have done, including the work on the prevention of sexual violence against women—and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, whom we have just welcomed into the House.

There is a lot more to do in this area. I am very happy to say that BIS now has a UK student outward mobility strategy, which was launched last year because British people do not go abroad enough. Lots of people come here, but we do not pay enough attention to making sure that our younger generation understands the rest of the world.

Multilateral work is how we have to approach much of soft power. There is little we can do on our own. We work closely with others. In South Sudan, for example, Britain and Norway are the joint chairs of one of the frameworks through which we try to negotiate, working closely with the African Union and the Arab League, doing our best to draw on Chinese participation wherever we can. International NGOs and NGOs based in Britain play a very valuable part in our endeavour. They are part of the soft power projection for Britain. Of course, we are very worried about the shrinking of space for NGOs to operate with Russia and in many other countries, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Commonwealth has also been mentioned—the language, culture and history—but, fundamentally, the rule of law, which we need to make as much as we can of, with India and South Africa in some ways as our key partners. The successful development of the rule of law in that regard is flawed but, nevertheless, is making real progress.

I have many more notes but I shall be as rapid as I can. We welcome the role of the churches in promoting tolerance and understanding among faiths as well as within each faith community, and in talking about different paths to God, particularly among the three faiths of the Book—Judaism, Islam and Christianity. I note that Ibrahim—Abraham—is now becoming one of the more popular boys’ names in Britain. That should remind people that these are not entirely incompatible traditions. The Government can assist in this regard. There are now university centres for Islamic theology and one needs to take that further. I take the opportunity to praise the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for the work she did, and the speeches she made, on tolerance to Muslim audiences in Istanbul, Oman and Kuala Lumpur as well as for the speeches she made in Washington and Rome on interfaith understanding. That work, and the work on human rights, is being continued by my noble friend Lady Anelay.

A number of noble Lords talked about student visas and the whole problem with visas. We recognise that we have a problem. That is partly because so many people want to come to Britain. However, applications for university student visas continue to rise, as does the student overseas population in Britain. There was an 18% increase in visas granted for skilled workers and a 14% increase in visitor visas last year, so we are not going backwards on that. However, we are struggling to meet the pressure resulting from the number of people wishing to enter Britain.

Some noble Lords mentioned the BBC World Service. It may be better if I write to them on that very large subject. On the economic side, the Prime Minister has made it entirely clear that we are concerned about finding the golden thread that links conflict-free development with prosperity—namely, the absence of war, getting rid of corruption, the establishment of the rule of law, decent government and having markets that work. That involves us in a great deal of co-operation with others in fighting international corruption and criminal regimes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, asked a number of questions, including whether the Government had undertaken a risk analysis of the implications of withdrawal from the ECHR. My clear answer is that of course we have not because the Government have no intention of leaving the ECHR, so no such analysis is necessary.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Surely the question may not be one just of leaving the ECHR but of considering the judgments as purely advisory.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I was involved in the Brighton initiative. We are concerned to reform and improve the quality of the court. I am happy to say that the last report I saw suggested that the backlog of applications under the ECHR has declined rapidly over the last two years, so British efforts to reform the Council of Europe have made real progress.

I agree that the European Union is the ultimate soft power element but we also have to recognise that popular disillusion with the EU is a common phenomenon in most member states. That is why the coalition Government, with others, are committed to a programme of EU reform.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked about a conference on Bosnia chaired by the Soul of Europe. I hope he will be reassured to hear that the FCO has written to the director of the Soul of Europe, informing him how he can access funding.

If I have not responded to other points made in the debate, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I write to them on those points. This has been an extremely valuable debate. I thank the most reverend Primate for introducing it and look forward to the next debate introduced by him, perhaps next year.