Defence Policy: Deterrence

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue. I will talk about deterrence in the broadest sense. In so doing, I declare my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission.

Deterrence is not just about the ability to hit back hard against an aggressor, thereby making that aggression less likely. It is also about demonstrating a level of preparedness against the threat posed and a degree of resilience to recover quickly from any attack mounted. The first duty of government is to keep the country safe and protect its citizens. That is an essential platform on which the nation’s economic growth and prosperity depend.

Increasingly, hostile states pursue their objectives in the grey zone between peace and open conflict. Conventional campaigns are supplemented or preceded by tactics of hybrid warfare involving cyberattacks, campaigns of misinformation and disinformation, and disruption to civil infrastructure, the economy and the vital services on which citizens and communities depend. For example, we have seen a spate of unexplained fires in installations around Europe, and in the past 24 hours have read the news with great interest in that context.

Such grey-zone operations may take place without any associated conventional military activities. They are often conducted by proxies, non-state actors or groups that may be state-controlled, state-sponsored or state-tolerated; or they may be conducted by covert means. They may be plausibly deniable and, although they may fall below the threshold of armed conflict, their consequences are likely to be just as serious as those of a more conventional attack.

Recent years have seen attacks on undersea cables and fuel pipelines; cyberattacks by state-sponsored actors, such as those leading to the SolarWinds hack in 2020 or the Hafnium attack in 2021; the jamming and spoofing of navigation satellite systems; and various sorts of drone activity, which of course can be conducted from hundreds of miles away. A preparedness to respond effectively to such attacks, or to recover quickly from them, makes them less worth while for the adversary and therefore helps to deter them.

The consequences of these grey-zone activities are not just immediate or limited only to recovering from the event itself. Of course there are costs involved in addressing the immediate challenge but, more seriously, there may be a weakening of the nation’s ability to respond effectively to other attacks. More significantly, such attacks and the failure to deal with them effectively may undermine public confidence in the state and the ability of the Government to protect their citizens. That would be a win for any adversary.

Similarly, the objective of misinformation and disinformation campaigns is to sow discord and undermine faith in a legitimate, democratic Government. Such campaigns are fuelled by social media and ever more sophisticated applications of artificial intelligence, but the intent is to undermine citizens’ faith in their Government and the democratic process itself.

Dealing with such challenges may not necessarily involve a military response. It will need a response from the rest of government, local authorities, emergency services and, indeed, the whole of society. Such a level of preparedness and resilience is an essential part of the nation’s defence capability, and it has to be a key component of modern deterrence.