National Security Situation

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to first thank the Government for securing this very timely debate. It is important to discuss these issues.

Terrorism remains a tier 1 threat to us. We first became aware of the Islamist terror threat in the last few years of the 1990s. We unravelled a plot to bomb London and one to poison the north London water supply, but 9/11 was a wake-up call. It made us suddenly realise that the co-ordinated Islamist global threat of terrorism was real and had to be countered. So began, in a sense, our much deeper involvement in the arc of instability that runs from Bosnia right through to Kashmir.

In 2001, we invaded Afghanistan. I have to say, I think that that invasion was appropriate and correct. I was commander-in-chief. I remember being in Afghanistan with 3 Commando Brigade and a lot of Special Forces soldiers. I was amazed at the sheer scale of the terrorist training camps and, indeed, the laboratories trying to produce anthrax and such things in that benighted country. One needs to be clear that, in Afghanistan, although the Taliban worked very closely with al-Qaeda, it was not the same thing. The Taliban had no interest in carrying out terrorist attacks around the world; al-Qaeda’s sole interest was in doing just that. We demolished al-Qaeda and their Taliban associates in Afghanistan very quickly and drove the remnants of al-Qaeda into the FATA in northern Pakistan. We did that inside three months. I believe very firmly that we should have gone in there, but at that stage we should have cobbled together some political grouping to run Afghanistan—let us face it, Afghanistan has always been a shambles—and we should have got out and said, “If you start training masses of terrorists to get us again, we’ll come back”. However, we did not; we stayed there and became part of the problem. That has been the problem with us in all our dealings with this region: we have not thought through what to do when we won and changed regimes. Generally, we can win when we fight these people—we are far better at it—but it is what happens next that we are so bad at.

Of course, while we were still sitting in Afghanistan, we started the war in Iraq. I will not go into all the details of that, but I have to say that I was very surprised—I was the Chief of Defence Intelligence until about a year and a half beforehand—when weapons of mass destruction became the reason for the invasion. I was quite clear from my time with defence intelligence staff that there was no real threat from these weapons of mass destruction—I thought he might have had a few gas shells—so I was quite surprised to see this a year and a half later. There may have been many good reasons to go to war with Saddam: for example, every day he was trying to shoot down allied aircraft that were enforcing the no-fly zone; he was sending out emissaries across the world, trying to get hold of things; and he was treating his own people appallingly. I have to say, I do not think that WMDs were a good reason for the invasion.

Anyway, we embarked on that war with forces still in Afghanistan, so we had a war in two places. Once again, we had not thought through what would happen when we won. We were going to win—of course we could thrash a country such as Iraq—but we did not think through what we were going to do when we won. At a meeting, the Chiefs of Staff asked the Prime Minister what would happen next. The plan was called phase 4. We asked what phase 4 was. The Prime Minister, and others, assured us that the Americans had phase 4 under control. We, as the chiefs, said that we would like to see the plan; we never saw it, but— I will not go into detail—phase 4 was not under control. We did not know what would happen. We had changed another regime with no idea of what was going to happen. The Americans dismantled their army and said that anyone who had anything to do with the Baath Party should not be there. It was a shambles. Of course, Iraq then developed in the way we all know.

So, things were going wrong in Iraq and we were having a lot of difficulty down in Basra by then. There were a lot of forces from NATO countries that did not want to be involved in Iraq. We also had 27,000 troops in Northern Ireland that were suddenly not going to be there. I remember a general saying, “If you don’t use them, you lose them”. The idea of us doing more in Afghanistan then came up, so we created a second front in Afghanistan and decided to go into Helmand. We had no intelligence—as an ex-military man, I am used to lots of intelligence—in that area. Once again, it became very sticky and unpleasant. What was our long-term plan? I sat in meetings where people talked about not wanting drugs in the UK and wanting women to be educated. That was not the reason. It was extraordinary; we did not have a clear aim of what we wanted to do. I believe noble Lords are getting the thread of how I feel about what happens when we get involved in such places.

The only good thing that came out of that is that, over that period, the level of threat from terrorism is this country undoubtedly dropped. We had gone from “severe” to “substantial” by 2010. Then came the Arab spring. Why it is called that, I do not know, but if noble Lords think about what it has done to that benighted region, it is quite extraordinary. Again, I do not believe that our Government had a clear strategy for how they would handle the outcome of the Arab spring. After the removal of Gaddafi—a nasty and horrible man—Libya was a terrible mess. We were firmly involved in going there to stop the massacre of people in Benghazi, but—again—we had not thought through what we would do next. Now, the country has tribes fighting each other; it is not settled or stable. The problems in Yemen arose after the Arab spring and there was trouble in places such as Bahrain.

The real area of trouble, of course, was Syria. We saw the rise of Daesh, which I first came across in 2003. It came from Jordan after beheading a couple of people in the region and grew exponentially. It said that it wanted a caliphate, which was able to form in part of Iraq because the Sunnis had been badly treated by the Iraqi Government, in Syria and in the whole region. Again, we did not have a clear view of how we wanted to deal with Daesh. I think it right that we got involved in the alliance to start “attritting” it, and there is no doubt that the caliphate has disappeared now, but many of the people involved have bomb-burst. The result is that we have a higher terrorist threat to this country than at any time since 9/11.

As a number of speakers have said, and I agree, our Government have made a real error with Syria. We hate and loathe Assad—let us face it, he is a loathsome man—but we have not dealt with him. In the world of politics and realpolitik, you have to deal with nasty bastards. We have not done so. As the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, we have slightly indicated that we would like a regime change. That is fine; I would love a regime change to something nice, but my goodness, many of the opposition there are worse than Daesh. If they got in, we would end up with 6 million dead Christians, Alawites and refugees. It would be pretty catastrophic. That is a real worry that we need to think through.

I have said enough on terrorism. Many noble Lords have talked about Russia. It is an enigma. Why on earth does Putin act the way he does? I do not think that the West handled the outcome of the Ukrainian revolution and the taking of Crimea very well. We did not really understand Russia. We need to understand that Kiev and Crimea fought for centuries to gain that area. We showed a lack of understanding. We do not understand that the average Russian hates NATO. They think that it is an offensive alliance. We know that it is not, but that is what they think. I love the Russian people; they are great fun and have a great sense of humour—a black sense of humour—as do we. Any Russian knows his Government. Russians would find it amusing to think that their Government were not lying. That is almost what many of them expect their Government to do. They expect their Government to lie; that is what Governments do. We have to understand and get inside their mindset. I do not think we have done that.

A number of noble Lords have asked why Putin has done all the things he has done. I am not absolutely clear, but it is extraordinary and highly dangerous. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, who is not in his place, said, there is no doubt that the policy of “de-escalation” that Putin started—in other words, when we start fighting they will fire a nuclear weapon because that will de-escalate the situation—is a very escalatory manoeuvre. It is very dangerous. He has spent a lot of money on nuclear and conventional weapons, yet his country has a GDP that is now about the size of Spain’s. That is not sustainable. That is a wartime economy. When there is not a war, wartime economies lead to collapse or to a war. We need to look at this and we need to be very worried.

I will not go into China. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, rightly pointed out one belt, one road. It is very interesting that Vanuatu, right down in the South Pacific, is becoming a Chinese base. The way China is expanding and moving is extraordinary. There are real worries there. Korea has been mentioned. I will not go through that either.

Again and again in this House, noble Lord and noble Baroness after noble Lord and noble Baroness have said that we have to spend more money on defence if we are taking this seriously. It seems as though one is talking in a vacuum. I could list almost every single debate in which I have spoken where this has been said, with support from around the House. It does not seem as though anything is happening. A lot of platitudes are mouthed about defence and security being the most important thing to any Government, but one is not seeing it happening. I find that extremely worrying.

The House would be very upset if I did not say that we need more ships, so I will say that we need more ships. However, we really do have to do something about defence spending. This has gone on too long. We are at a cliff edge and that is very dangerous for our nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as set out in the register. I have discovered that there are a lot of informal clubs and groups around your Lordships’ House; one of the smallest is that of former National Security Advisers, since it has only one member. I hope noble Lords will not feel that that disqualifies me from contributing to the debate. I welcome the fact that the debate looks at national security as a whole. One of the intentions behind setting up the National Security Council, as I did for David Cameron in 2010, was that it should co-ordinate across the whole of government all the different arms—security, defence and foreign policy—and assemble around the Prime Minister and senior Ministers all the key advisers, including, for the first time in a structured way, the intelligence community heads, to have systematic discussion across this whole range with plenty of challenge, and a forum to really take decisions. That is just as well since, as many noble Lords have said, we have more simultaneous threats to the security of this country now than at any time since the Cold War.

If we look at the immediate situation, as others have said, the Islamist terrorist threat is clearly high. It is not an existential threat to this country but it needs continued vigilance. The international security system put in place by our predecessors in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War is under real stress, particularly from countries that do not accept the rules that were laid down there. One of the most interesting recent comments on national security was from US Defense Secretary Mattis in presenting the US defence strategy a couple of months ago. He said that,

“great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security”.

That is a phrase that we too should ponder in this House.

Russia has been at the heart of this debate, quite rightly. I can say from my own experience that we have taken a tougher approach to Russia in the UK since the Litvinenko poisoning than any other European country. We understood from that time that the Russia of President Putin regards the West as an adversary; that he is playing a zero-sum game; that he will push wherever he senses weakness; that he is creating a sphere of influence, in the classic sense, around Russia; and that he is actively trying to sow discord and division among his adversaries. Russia is deliberately developing tools to blur the lines between war and covert manipulation. The record on that is pretty clear, from the Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea, the interference in Donbass, the pressure on the Baltic states, the increasingly blatant manipulation of our media and our electoral processes in the West, the intervention in Syria in support of President Assad—all of that points in the same direction.

And then there was the poisoning of the Skripals. Whoever in Moscow authorised that—I agree that there is no plausible alternative to it being authorised and conducted from Moscow—miscalculated very badly. I assume they thought it would be like the Litvinenko case: a few Russian spies would be thrown out, the world would move on and a chilling message would have been sent to Russian traitors around the world. I think they miscalculated the growing sense of unease that the previous recklessness of Russian behaviour has generated in many countries. People saw it as another confirmation of a pattern of behaviour and therefore there has been a very strong and supportive international reaction. I applaud the way the Government have handled that very difficult case with determination, firmness and effective rallying of a large international consensus—much larger, in my view, than the Russians expected. They have been wrong-footed, and they have reacted with a classic combination of sarcasm and dismissal, coupled with menace and obfuscation. We now need to go through what has been announced in terms of implementing financial measures to show that this was not simply a one-off expulsions effort, but that there are real consequences for Russian money in London and other capitals.

At a most inconvenient moment for Russia, their Syrian allies chose to use chemical weapons in Douma. I agree with other noble Lords who have said that it is incomprehensible why Assad should have felt it was necessary to use chemical weapons against his own citizens at that very moment. Again, I entirely applaud the Government’s handling of that. It was absolutely right that Britain joined the US and France in the military response. It was an error in 2013 that the other place voted against joining air strikes. They too were limited with a specific target, and fitted well into the strategy. That sent a signal of British disengagement around the world. What signal would it have sent if Britain had stood aside a second time from western action? Of course, that one-off military operation will not fundamentally change the Syrian civil war. I agree with others in the debate that it needs to form part of a wider strategy and that we need to get back to a political process. I am sure that the Minister can put the Government’s position more clearly than I can, but in my memory it has long been the position of the Government that the Syrian regime would have to be part of any such negotiation. The problem has been getting the Syrian parties together; that needs to be re-energised now.

The Russian reaction to the Syrian use of CW has been very odd. It is as if they thought we were blaming Russia for using CW and that we would attack Russian forces. They had some problem keeping a single coherent line; on the same day that the Russian defence ministry in Moscow was saying, “It was the British wot did it”, the Russian representative in New York was saying that there had not been any chemical attack at all. We had a great deal of scaremongering that any western military action could be the prelude to World War III, and that things were now worse than the Cold War. Worse than the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia? I do not think so, although some of our media picked up the Russian propaganda and worried people a great deal.

It is essential for a Prime Minister to have discretion to authorise military action in an emergency, and to be accountable to Parliament afterwards for the exercise of that discretion. I am clear that any British Government with any sense of survival will take care to consult Parliament and have parliamentary backing before launching any significant large-scale military activity putting British lives at risk—certainly any ground-force military operation—but a limited, contained military strike of the kind that we saw at the weekend, co-ordinated with allies and therefore with decisions required urgently, seems within the discretion that a Prime Minister should have. It should be an issue for political discretion and accountability, not for definition in legislation.

In addition to the immediate and the urgent there are some very long-term issues, as other noble Lords have indicated. Since before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the twin pillars of our grand strategy have been to be the closest of allies with Washington, and to be anchored in Europe despite a degree of turbulence there. Bits of masonry are falling off each pillar. Leaving the European Union clearly changes one element of that strategy, and the inevitable US move in the focus of its national security towards Asia alters the relationship with Washington. That is no surprise, as the defining national security issue of the next 50 years will be US competition with China; the surprise has been President Trump’s retreat from multilateralism and the hesitations about endorsing NATO Article 5, which produced the other interesting comment of the last year, which was Chancellor Merkel at the G7 saying, “We Europeans truly have to take our fate in our own hands”. For a Federal German Chancellor to show that degree of concern about NATO is worrying.

I profoundly hope that a review of Britain’s role in the world will conclude that we should remain an activist, engaged international power, living up to our responsibilities as a permanent member. However, that argument has to be remade and re-won with the British people after all the problems that we have had with Iraq and Afghanistan, as others have said. That argument needs to begin now. It is one of the most important tasks for our National Security Council, alongside all the immediate and urgent matters that it has to deal with.

[Lord West of Spithead]

In the context of the noble Lord’s work as National Security Adviser, what level of discussion was there about the scale of defence forces required for our nation?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, it comes as no surprise to me that a debate devoted to our national security should have elicited so many contributions of real depth and insight from your Lordships, and I therefore begin by thanking all those who have taken the trouble to speak this afternoon. To my mind, a number of big themes have emerged and many noble Lords have recognised that our national security situation today is more serious than at any point since the end of the Cold War. As my noble friend Lord Ahmad made clear, it is the depth and breadth of the threats we face that is different now, and even greater than when we last assessed them fully, in the 2015 SDSR.

What is also clear is that we face a range of threats from state powers, not just the terrorists and insurgents who have often been the focus of recent debates. Particular events are fresh in all our minds. In recent weeks Salisbury and Syria have shown that chemical warfare, a scourge of the early twentieth century, is still something that we need to counter. As a Government, we have endeavoured to show leadership against these two brutal attacks; first, by attributing and exposing them, which improves understanding of the nature of the threat; secondly, by proposing and implementing tough responses, which raise the cost for those adversaries who would otherwise act with impunity; and thirdly, by building international support that ensures that our responses are even more effective and maximise the combined effect, whether through diplomatic expulsions after Salisbury or the precision of the missile strikes in Syria last weekend. A heavy price has been paid by our adversaries and we have sent a crystal-clear message.

On Syria, we know that our response to the CW attack degrades Assad’s capabilities and we hope it deters further chemical weapon use. As noble Lords know from earlier statements, our response was not designed to change the fundamental course of that conflict. However, we remain clear that the only appropriate outcome in Syria is a negotiated settlement that takes account of legitimate grievances. I will say more about that later. While on occasion we are obliged to be reactive, this Government are determined not to be buffeted by security crises, but to shape them by internationalising our agenda. NATO is at the heart of our defence approach. The alliance has taken important and lasting steps in recent years to build a robust response to the challenge posed by Russia.

The Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 made clear in stark terms that the rules-based order is under threat and the free choices of European states must not be taken for granted. NATO’s enhanced forward presence in the Baltic states and Poland, along with air and naval patrols north and south, have shown a clear commitment to collective defence, while being measured and non-escalatory. The UK is one of the most active contributors. An ever-stronger deterrent is being built with a NATO badge. This coming October the alliance will hold its biggest exercise of the year in and around Norway. It will involve some 35,000 forces from 30 countries, with as many as 70 ships and 130 aircraft. The UK will play a full part, contributing Royal Navy and Royal Air Force platforms and an Army HQ. This training will show that NATO is credible and able to operate at an impressive scale with integrated multinational forces. This year’s NATO summit will also reform command structures and refocus on the north Atlantic as a contested environment on which the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff has placed great emphasis.

Russia uses what some have termed “reflexive control” to deceive us and manipulate domestic and international audiences, as well as intimidate the West. We must not fall victim to this or succumb to the Kremlin’s agenda. Its narrative is filled with disinformation and conspiracy theories that aim to weaken our unity and responses. We must also resist exaggerating the threat in the way that Moscow wants or following its feints when it seeks to distract us. Instead, we must and will expose the genuine attacks that it seeks to hide. The Government issued a démarche to Russia earlier this year over its NotPetya cyberattack in Ukraine and drew attention to the evidence for Russia’s role in the Montenegro coup attempt back in 2016. Deception is one facet of what our American colleagues call “grey zone conflict”—the space between peace and war where Russia acts with far less ethical or legal constraint and, importantly, strives to stay below our threshold of response. The range of hostile acts we face in this grey zone, including cyber, subversion and information warfare, can be serious. To counter threats of this kind, we must prepare to do so with allies and partners. All the time, we strive with them to appreciate the full scope of the threats and ensure our ability to respond. The modernising defence programme and the NATO summit in the summer are important parts of our developing approaches.

On geography and reach, our well-justified refocus on the euro-Atlantic region does not mean acting at the expense of our expeditionary ability or our long-standing commitment to security in the Arabian Gulf. This year will see the UK deploy some 4,500 members of the Armed Forces to the Gulf for Exercise Saif Sareea 3. That demonstration of our ability to project power at distance and intervene if required shows the flexibility, reach and capability of our Armed Forces and sends a strong message to our adversaries in the Middle East and globally that they should not assume a free hand.

Understandably, the role of Parliament has been a subject of discussion this week and in this debate. The noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition asked me to clarify the Government’s position. The Government take their responsibilities when using force most seriously. Combat operations receive the closest scrutiny and attention. I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, that we share the principle that Parliament should be able to debate the deployment of UK military forces in combat. However, we must be clear that, for the success of some such deployments, we must not shackle all decisions on the use of force to pre-authorisation by Parliament. Had we done that in relation to the recent military action, it would have weakened our operational security by divulging military choices openly, including to our enemies. It would also have undermined our imperative for speed of decision and action. An adversary with more time to prepare for our response will naturally be better able to evade the action against him. I was grateful for the comments of my noble friend Lady Finn in that regard. Our ability to exploit uncertainty and maximise the element of surprise played a critical part in the success of the operation. Those two very reasonable concerns are supported by those in government and the Armed Forces who are seasoned in planning military action.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, asked me what would happen if Mr Assad staged a repetition of the chemical attacks of 7 April. Our actions were designed to disrupt the Syrian regime’s ability to conduct such attacks and to prevent further unacceptable human suffering. We know that we have not destroyed every part of Assad’s chemical warfare capability—that was not the intention—but we hope and believe that UK and allied action will deter such attacks in future in Syria, and deter others from believing that they can use chemical weapons with impunity. It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria and to defend the global consensus that those weapons should not be used. Syria and others should be in no doubt of our resolve to uphold international norms and values.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, expressed concern that the strikes should worry the wider Arab community. They should not. This was a limited, targeted and effective strike with clear boundaries that expressly sought to avoid escalation and did everything possible to prevent civilian casualties. It was not about intervening in a civil war. My noble friend Lord Dobbs was spot on about that. To the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, I emphasise that the legal basis for our participation in the strikes is humanitarian intervention. We have published that legal position. The UK is permitted under international law, on an exceptional basis, to take measures to alleviate overwhelming humanitarian suffering. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Singh, to whom I listened with great respect, that the evidence of the Syrian regime’s culpability for the chemical weapons attack is very strong indeed.

The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, asked whether the decision-making process leading up to the strikes was fully Chilcot-compliant. He, along with my noble friends Lord Attlee and Lady Pidding, will wish to know that throughout the planning stages, officials and Ministers have been acutely aware of learning lessons from the past and we have sought to apply the recommendations in the Chilcot report rigorously. From the start, we deliberately used structured and independent internal oversight and sought challenge from France and the US, and other agencies. A key component of that was the JIC process.

Decision-makers were informed directly by subject matter experts and an audit trail has been constructed throughout. We based our decision-making on an assessment from all sources available to us. We agreed a clear and realistic objective, developed a robust plan and allocated the appropriate resources. We considered a range of scenarios and developed contingency planning and preventative action. We gave space for debate and challenge, including through officials’ meetings in COBRA and ministerial meetings in the National Security Council and the Cabinet. Key to the operation were the consequence management assessments. We ran through a number of scenarios and then worked on plans for de-escalating the situation. The whole focus of the operation was a humanitarian one, so the focus on not causing casualties was inherent in the targeting from the start.

My noble friend Lady Helic, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the noble Lords, Lord West, Lord Campbell and Lord Hylton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry asked about the future strategy for Syria and the game plan for ending the conflict. Mr Assad’s regime bears overwhelming responsibility for the suffering of the Syrian people. His oppression has caused untold human suffering, fuelled extremism and terrorism and created the space for Daesh. It has been suggested that we should recognise the reality of the Assad regime and rebase our diplomatic policy in the light of that. I listened carefully and respectfully to the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Campbell, and others on that issue. However, I am afraid that I cannot offer any comfort to them.

The image of an ambassador of Her Majesty shaking hands with Mr Assad following a restoration of diplomatic relations with Syria is anathema to me and my ministerial colleagues. We believe that the Assad regime has lost all legitimacy, due to its atrocities against the Syrian people. In our view, a sustainable political settlement in Syria requires a political transition. For that reason, we remain committed to achieving our long-standing goals in Syria: defeating the scourge of Daesh and achieving a political settlement that ends the war and suffering, one which provides stability for all Syrians and the wider region. What should that look like?

[Lord West of Spithead]

Does the Minister believe that there is any possibility whatever of getting a diplomatic solution if we try to ignore Assad, who is a fact of life on the ground? Looking back over the years, Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries of this country have had to shake hands with some pretty loathsome people because that is realpolitik—what the world is like—much as we do not like them. But if you do not do it, things can become worse.

[Earl Howe]

We certainly believe that Mr Assad needs to be a part of the negotiations leading to a long-term solution, as I shall explain. There needs to be a transition to a new, inclusive and non-sectarian Government who can protect the rights of all Syrians and unite the country, but we are pragmatic about how to achieve that.