The Role and Capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the Light of Global and Domestic Threats to Stability and Security

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I fully support the comment from the right reverend Prelate that the seriousness of the situation that we face as we approach the SDSR requires the maximum possible public involvement and understanding of the issues that we face. I think the Committee will be grateful to the Minister for initiating this debate today at a very important time, coinciding as it does with the very difficult situation that we face internationally and, coincidentally, with the opening day of the very big defence exhibition, DSEI, which sets out a lot of the sort of equipment that many of our armed services would much like to have if they could afford them.

We start this debate helped by a brief from the Library that includes the report of the Defence Select Committee in the House of Commons, published in March 2015—this year. It is full of interesting things, but in a significant sense it is already out of date. Some of the challenges that we now face did not exist then. We know about the issues of failed states, the mass migration of people, the risk of terrorism, the increasing power of Daesh—I insist on calling it that, not ISIL—and the range of different problems that we now face. We are asked to consider the role and capabilities of the UK Armed Forces in the light of global and domestic threats, stability and security.

The changes since the last SDSR are even more profound. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and other noble Lords who are present for this debate have shared with me the responsibility of adjusting our Armed Forces as a result of what we thought was the permanent end of the Cold War. More recently we have come to know the worries about what is developing, and exactly what President Putin’s attitude is must be taken seriously into consideration. I am on the record as saying that I think that NATO needs to show sensitivity towards the understanding that Russia, much humbled and embarrassed as it was by the total collapse of the Soviet Union, is clinging to a desire for some sort of status in the world. That accounts for President Putin’s extraordinary level of popularity in Russia because he has given self-respect back to many Russians after the humiliations they endured at the end of the Cold War.

Having said that, I personally have made it clear that I do not think it is sensible to advance for ever the boundaries of NATO. I do not think it is sensible, and indeed it is provocative. That does not excuse the obvious Russian involvement in events in Ukraine or the way in which the Russians have approached Crimea. But an intelligent and sensitive approach on the part of NATO is important. Against that, as the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said, there would need to be some evidence of a credible and effective NATO response were there to be unwise approaches coming out of Moscow. There may be some thinking, following the events in Crimea and some Russian activities in Ukraine, that NATO no longer really exists as an effective opposition. Exactly how that should be addressed is a very important issue, and I think that some presence on the ground in Germany in the way we used to have and with no precipitate withdrawal might be a sensible way to proceed.

I turn now to wider developments. There is no question but that the problems we now face are extraordinarily widespread and are coming very fast. We did not have the issues in Yemen on the huge scale they present when the Select Committee produced its report in March. The humanitarian challenges that may be imminent are extremely worrying. Obviously we have been supportive of the attempt to restore the existing Government of Yemen, but the challenges posed by that campaign are very real indeed.

When we look around the world at groups such as Boko Haram and the situation in Libya—I hope to see greater stability in Egypt because that is an extremely important element—we can see the huge scale of the refugee crisis that is only just beginning. We have an idea that we are dealing with the problems presented by the numbers that are coming now. Some 200,000 people have now been killed in Syria in the appalling collapse of order and civil war that is taking place in that country. If there are 4 million refugees resulting from that, the scale and the challenge which such numbers represent, and the difficulties we are having in dealing with the situation, are only going to multiply.

We used to talk about “failed states”. I wonder who could add up for me the number of failed states we have in the world. Some have failed through civil war and others through brutally awful Governments. I do not know what our relations with Eritrea are like, but it was interesting to note the number of Eritreans who have been involved in the deaths and tragedies in the boats as people try to escape. No doubt it is a pretty brutal regime. It is against that background that we should consider the challenges faced by the Ministry of Defence and the Government around conventional defence and what is apparently now called “ambiguous warfare”, but used to be known as asymmetric warfare. I thought that that was interesting.

What are the weapons in the hands of some of the people that we face? One of the weapons to which as far as I know we have no answer at the moment is the suicide bomber. How interesting that in the attacks that have been launched by Daesh and other terrorist groups that have been advancing, the initial salvo is not an artillery bombardment. We saw it most recently in the escape of 350 prisoners from an Afghan prison when the opening salvo was the suicide bomber who blew down the gates. I instance that as an illustration of the quite different challenges that we face. I do not want to sound alarmist about this but I thank my lucky stars for the fact that, including when I was responsible for Northern Ireland, the Irish situation has never involved suicide bombers. It poses a major challenge and we know it is a challenge that we may have to face in this country as well. I instance that because of the range of challenges that are coming up in the SDSR which are the responsibility partly of the Ministry of Defence, partly of the Home Office and partly of the intelligence agencies. The whole range of the defence and security apparatus of our country needs to be knitted together effectively at this time.

It is against that background that I welcome the statement—which took a little time to come—of the 2% commitment from the Government, and the phrases that are used about being “a force for good in the world” and “punching above our weight”, but I then consider how many things we need to do to be able to justify those claims. The Select Committee report states that,

“the UK must rebuild its conventional capacities eroded since the Cold War. The requirements are many, including Maritime Surveillance, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Radiological warfare training, developing a Ballistic Missile Defence capability, an enhanced Navy and Air Force, a comprehensive carrier strike capability, and full manoeuvre warfare capacity”,

which the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, was talking about. It must also,

“develop new capabilities to respond to the threat from ‘next-generation’ or asymmetric … threats from cyber attack, information operations, and the use of Special Forces … the UK must simultaneously develop the capacity to respond to an expanding series of challenges outside Europe—terrorism, brutal authoritarian regimes (killing their own citizens), extremist groups holding large territories as pseudo-states, state collapse, civil war, and state fragility. It needs to do so concurrently, and with limited resources”.

That shopping list going into SDSR is a challenge and the Minister is looking suitably depressed at this particular moment because the challenge is immense, and it includes also the extraordinary difficulty of the world of social media, which did not exist when I had any responsibility. We know that the advance of Daesh—ISIL—and its capture of Mosul was done on WhatsApp. That was the way in which it communicated with its forces effectively and speedily. Unsurprisingly, we find that with the refugees who are now moving through Greece and being told which way to come through Macedonia and into Hungary and Serbia or wherever, WhatsApp is at the heart of their operations. The whole social media problem poses enormous new challenges for our intelligence agencies as well as our security services, the Armed Forces and the police, in terms of the speed at which they can move.

What all this means—having read that huge shopping list out—is that, of course, we have to be flexible. We have to try and ensure that it is certainly not a time to be weak. There is a real risk in parts of the world of a descent into total chaos and it is against that background that we have to think very hard about what we can actually do in terms of punching above our weight and being a force for good in the world if we start getting involved in too many stabilisation operations. I think of working with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, in the first Gulf War. We went in; with co-operation, the alliance liberated Kuwait in about nine months; and we got out. We are now in the 14th year of our involvement in Afghanistan. Knowing the years we spent in these other territories, the problems they posed and the price we paid for them, the depth to which we can get involved in stabilisation is a very real consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, talked about understanding the countries in which we get involved. What we knew at the start of Afghanistan is true of other places. I am afraid the message is that, in stabilisation operations, it is very easy to get in and very difficult to get out.

Against that background, I see the enormous challenge represented by the SDSR. The old saw, “the future is not what it used to be”, is very true of the present time. When we did Options for Change, we had forces in uniform of 350,000, which were then reduced to 250,000. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, may nod in agreement with that figure. I was asked at the time by an enthusiastic BBC reporter why on earth we were keeping all those people. The Cold War was finished, what threat were we anticipating? Fortunately, I answered: the threat of the unexpected. Four days later, Saddam Hussein walked into Kuwait, totally unpredicted by the intelligence agencies. The unexpected had hit us very hard.

The noble Earl said, very splendidly, that defence of the realm is the first priority of any Government. It is not for the Treasury, which does not seem to have heard the line yet. Education, health and a few other areas are protected areas of expenditure but defence does not qualify. For the first time, I will say in public that I seriously wonder whether 2%—especially when amended by ingenious devices such as including military pensions and other things—will meet the challenges we face at this time. It is an extraordinarily difficult problem, at a time when the nation’s finances are least able to support it. Manning levels in the Army are a particular hobby-horse of mine. If they are dependent on reserves, and if we are going to be able to sustain the level of those reserves, I hope the Government will stand by their undertaking that if the reserve figures are not matched they will look again at the level of the Regular Army. We cannot tell where the challenges are going to come from, but they are real enough at this time. It is very important that we keep our flexibility.

I will say one other unkind thing. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, complained about the carriers depriving flexibility for further capital investment in the Army. The Navy has also been something of a casualty. I am a great believer in the maximisation of platforms and we now seem to have got ourselves into a situation where the carriers are not available. We have had to live without them and they have stopped a lot of other things that might have been available a bit earlier and met many of the problems we face. I have been thoroughly unhelpful to the Minister and I apologise for that. He has an exceptionally difficult job and I very much appreciate the opportunity for a number of noble Lords who are concerned about the country’s future and the dangerous world in which we live to contribute to the discussions at this early stage.