Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with whose analyses I almost invariably agree—although with his conclusions a little less than invariably. Like him, I shall concentrate on the rules-based order part of the Motion we are discussing. I do so not because I question for one moment the crucial role of a fairly funded NATO and a strong and agile military and maritime power on a far greater extent than we have today, but because our defence and physical safety now rely on so many other things, in a totally transformed and disrupted world security environment that is unlike anything that existed even five years ago, let alone a decade or so ago.

A year ago the then Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, observed that the distinctions between military capability, intelligence agency capability, diplomatic capability and capacity building through development programmes et cetera, are “becoming more blurred at the edges”—in other words, very interrelated. To his list I would add: the sheer pace of digital technology, which has empowered the streets and the masses and transformed the balance of power throughout the globe; the fragmentation of states, which we have seen in the Middle East particularly; the vast shift of power, production and capital construction to the east and south and away from the north and the west in the 21st century, away from the Atlantic powers and especially to Asia; and, above all, the vital need to win, and keep winning, the narrative through adroit projection of soft power and through maximum connectivity, all the time and everywhere. It is what the Chinese call winning the discourse war, or the information battle, and it is now central in a way that it was not even five years ago.

The signals for a change of gear have been there long enough. None of what has happened now is very new. Long before Brexit or Donald Trump, the need for a fundamental rethink in our position was there. First, for example, it has been obvious for three decades that power was shifting in the world, away from the Atlantic hegemony of the 20th century and from Governments and hierarchies of power generally. Major changes in the co-ordination and configuration of Britain’s international policies were bound to be necessary. In many ways, the whole pace of innovation and investment is being set at the other end of the planet.

Secondly, it has been equally obvious that conventional military size and big spend were going to be challenged everywhere by small and agile methods, and that the whole scale of power and influence deployment has changed. The microchip has, among many other things, miniaturised weapons force and power dramatically. The Davids have been vastly empowered against the Goliaths everywhere. Almost any small organisation, tribe or cell can operate a lethal drone. An inexpensive shoulder-launched missile can destroy a $100 million plane or disable a $1 billion warship.

Thirdly, it has long been clear that in the digital age military engagement has to accept entirely new rules. The battle may no longer be on the battlefield. The ubiquity of the web and total connectivity, on a scale never before known in human history, mean that infinitely greater audiences have to be persuaded and influenced. There are no clear decision points between victors and vanquished. Trust becomes the new and essential winning weapon. Subtle new mixtures of force and friendship have to be crafted and assembled if permanent instability is to be overcome in any theatre and any kind of settlement reached.

As I have already said, none of this is very new. Indeed, our own military thinkers and leaders have responded with growing vigour over the decades. I remember the days of Frank Kitson’s low-intensity warfare, the practice of which I was involved in in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Profound and innovative ideas have been continuously developed by military thinkers in response to these new conditions and new types of engagement. Yet there seems to me to be one colossal piece missing from this plethora of activity and all this dedication to new forms of power deployment in a radically transformed international milieu. The missing piece is clear: motivating purpose and cause. What exactly is it all aimed at? What is the central story, the truly coherent, graspable, definable strategic narrative that should be the common and impelling theme right across this landscape, and in the minds of every service man and woman at all levels all the time?

A central lesson from our House of Lords soft power report three years ago, Persuasion and Power in the Modern World, from the many experts who gave evidence to it, and from the current International Relations Committee inquiry into the UK Middle Eastern policy, is that for our power and influence to be effective, and our interests to be well protected and promoted, there have to be some defined policy priorities and goals. These can be derived only from a clear and overall articulation of our national purposes and direction, against a background of an increasingly confused and altered world. We need to be prepared for, believe in and be fighting for some definite goal.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said, we need a certain idea of the United Kingdom—to adapt, as he said, General de Gaulle’s phrase—in the new networked international landscape that has replaced the 20th-century order. One has to ask what this certain idea, now in its British clothing in this age of global turmoil, is to be. Does the prospect of Brexit—possibly positively—and the arrival of Donald Trump, in a more negative way, point to the answer? I believe that they do. We now have to build a partnership for European security, although not under but liberated from the old EU treaties. This is plainly a major opportunity for creative leadership in the digital age.

We can cast off the image of a Britain of limited, downsized ambitions, as some American commentators keep saying we are signalling. They are frankly reading the wrong signals. However, they can hardly be blamed, when they see that we are spending less on our diplomacy through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget—now about £800 million net—than we blow, for example, on cavalier aid dispersals to international agencies or on subsiding carbon reduction by the most expensive conceivable means. Billions have gone in that direction with little to show for it. The sooner that these international departments dovetail, and in some cases even reunite—in the words of my noble friend Lord Howe, to pack a more powerful punch—the better.

As for America, it is obvious that Pax Americana is finished, even if some Americans still believe otherwise. America, spending more than the next eight major countries combined on defence, no longer wins wars. Anyway, I doubt whether President Trump is quite the power everyone seems to think, as power slips away from all Governments into the hyper-connected worldwide network. His attempts to impose trade protection on the fluid and revolutionised international trade scene are bound to fail in an age of internationalised production.

Should not our strategic and unifying vision be something quite different from either of these 20th-century tableaux? Should not our story be of a more confident Britain, superbly placed to operate with agility in today’s networked and heavily interdependent world, making full use of its huge experience and extensive global friendships, and an amazing latticework of relationships, trust, common understanding and brilliant connections all across the globe? Is not the inspiration a resourceful Britain, wonderfully woven into the Commonwealth network of 2.3 billion people using the same working language, language being, of course, the ultimate conveyor of complex ideas, common understanding and trust—the default protocol of the planet? For deploying Britain’s undeniably immense but still underused soft-power assets, the Commonwealth —with its ready-made trust network—is the ideal forum and platform, although there are some backsliders.

To see things through this lens demands a changed mindset among policymakers and those in all branches of government, civil and military, who are charged with safeguarding Britain’s security, and its global business, brand and reputation. We are talking about nothing less than a grand repositioning of the United Kingdom in a world utterly transformed by the digital age. For this we need a new strategic synthesis, ready to work bilaterally, with America as a partner, to a degree with China and closely with our European neighbours, but not permanently tied or overcommitted to any of them.

The Army speaks rightly of its core purpose, but whatever form power, deployment and projection take nowadays, soft, hard or smart, one purpose above all others needs to be clear, inspirational and a source of commitment at every level. This is to uphold the nation’s changing role and interests in an age of global turmoil, and to provide its security with a rock-solid basis. That is the unambiguous message that our society and its leading voices need to send to all three branches of our armed services, so that they can perform at their best, with a clear sense of direction. We owe them nothing less.