Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Roberts of Belgravia Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Roberts of Belgravia (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this excellent report, which struck me as a model of its kind. Of course, after the disgraceful scene in the Oval Office on Friday, the situation has changed since the publication of the report and significantly for the worse. We must not underestimate the gravity of what has happened, which is that during a war against totalitarian dictatorship the United States has effectively changed sides. It is very unusual for a country to change sides during a major war. Historically, Italy did it in 1943, but that was hardly decisive. However, the Saxons and Württembergers changed sides on the third day of the four-day Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, which doomed Napoleon in that campaign. Before that, the Stanleys changed sides on the morning of the Battle of Bosworth, which similarly spelled doom for Richard III.

We might be shocked by the Trump Administration’s volte-face but we should not be surprised by it. He never hid his antipathy to Ukraine and her existential struggle. Frankly, he is right about the pathetic and woeful levels of GDP that we and the Europeans presently spend on defence. However, the sheer brutality of his dealings over the past week, and especially the United Nations vote alongside Russia, Syria, the Central African Republic, North Korea and Belarus—countries in which I am sure your Lordships would like to live—from which even the Chinese had the decency to abstain, thrusts us into utterly uncharted territory.

What needs to be done now seems clear. The rest of NATO must get its spending up to the 3.4% of GDP that the Americans spend. The $300 billion of frozen Russian assets sitting in Euroclear in Brussels need to be given to Ukraine. EU cohesion funds need to be repurposed for defence, and defence spending needs to be exempted from the EU’s fiscal deficit rules. Meanwhile, missile defence systems must be rushed to Kyiv and Kharkiv.

The brave President Zelensky needs to do his country yet another great service by biting his lip, stop speaking truth to America’s overwhelming power and sign the minerals deal that will financially incentivise the United States to be invested in a durable peace. Winston Churchill called President Roosevelt’s lend-lease agreement “the most unsordid act”, when the Americans allowed us 65 years to pay off the debt. By total contrast, the Trump Administration are gouging Ukraine while the war is still going on—the very definition of kicking a man when he is down. There is no point in expecting security guarantees worth their salt from the United States for the heavily armed 700-mile border that will now scar south-eastern Europe, probably for decades. Security guarantees are only worth while if they are given willingly. The Europeans and some countries outside Europe, such as Canada and Australia, will instead have to patrol that long frontier between civilisation and barbarism. The willingness of the Canadians and Australians, once again in their histories, to step up to a great task should make us proud of the Commonwealth.

Mr Vance has spoken of trying to stop pushing Russia

“into the hands of the Chinese”,

but a policy of trying to draw Russia away from the Chinese orbit will not work. Democracies’ attempts to draw dictatorships away from other dictatorships have consistently failed ever since the Stresa Front of 1935. It might take time to fail, but fail it will. Meanwhile, the tragic by-products of the Administration’s Ukraine policy are already evident, not least in a 15% drop in pro-Americanism in this country almost overnight. I fear that, if the United States was to suffer another 9/11—God forbid—we would not see the wholehearted and full-throated support for her that we saw in 2001. A wholly transactional foreign policy has unseen costs that do not show up on balance sheets and profit and loss accounts.

When Winston Churchill spoke in the Munich debate, he used words that Europe should heed today, as we fundamentally rebalance our world in the light of this startling American defection to the side of a dictator who, throughout his career, has only ever wished America ill. Churchill said that we needed

“a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour”,

so that we could

“arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/10/1938; col. 373.]

We must adopt that stance, adopt it now and take this first-class report as our template.