Ukraine: Defence Relationships

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, while I think it is right that we should review the integrated review in the context of the Ukraine war and a number of global issues that have come to light because of that war, I think the integrated review was broadly accurate in identifying the trends that would shape national security and the international environment over the next decade. It stated very clearly that NATO should remain

“the foundation of collective security”

in the Euro-Atlantic region and identified Russia as remaining “the most acute threat” to the UK’s security—both of which I think were right.

A number of people, including my noble friend Lord Liddle, believe there is not enough emphasis on working with the EU on security and defence matters. Having been involved in the defence arena for some 57 years, and a major NATO commander for a number of those years, I have no doubt whatever that we must ensure that our European allies channel their co-operative defence efforts through NATO, rather than trying to construct what I would call a “lesser NATO”, which will just divert resources for no defence benefit.

I also strongly support the integrated review’s intent that the UK should become

“the European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence in the Indo-Pacific—committed for the long term, with closer and deeper partnerships, bilaterally and multilaterally”

in that arena. Many of my interlocutors in the US military see this very much as a quid pro quo: the US has supported us in Europe and is delighted that we are actually showing an intent to do so in that region. It would be a catastrophic mistake to ignore the Indo-Pacific and China because of the war in Ukraine. I have no doubt that that will be a threat that comes up on us.

My difficulties are rather around the MoD plans laid out in Defence in a Competitive Age, which covered the contribution of the MoD and the Armed Forces to achieving the objectives set out in the IR. Much of this stems from the fact that, despite all sorts of intentions, there has been a lack of funding in defence for many years. Looking to the future, that lack of funding is exacerbated by the assumption of what are very illusory efficiency savings—they just will not happen; we know this from past experience. Spending money on defence is clearly very hard for Governments in our cosy, secure society, but the reason we are in a cosy, secure society is because we spent money on defence. There is considerable truth in the view that wars are won not on the battlefield but by building up military capability beforehand. It is noticed by competitors, particularly dictators, and therefore it prevents war—but it takes time.

Many of us who have warned of chronic underfunding have been told time and again that we are wrong. The reality is that our Armed Forces are too weak to prevent war, which is something that Armed Forces do rather well, and if there is a war, which I am afraid one day there probably will be, they lack the equipment and manpower to keep us safe. Our Army, Navy and Air Force are too small. They lack the ability to withstand the inevitable attrition and are insufficiently equipped with state-of-the-art, fully maintained weapons—that is important—and sufficient war stocks—that too is important—for the inevitably high war-usage rates that we know happen, as Ukraine has illustrated very clearly.

The integrated review planned to restructure the Armed Forces for

“permanent and persistent global engagement”.

Therefore, our maritime strategy makes sense, not least because we are an island nation, which we seem to forget regularly, and in particular after the large shift of resources away from the maritime into the continental warfare area over decades in our counter-terrorist and failed nation building in south-east Asia. One cannot fault the desire to make the Army

“more lethal, nimbler and more effectively matched to current and future threats.”

Of course we want to do that, but we need to be very wary of making it “leaner”. Numbers matter, whether of ships, aircraft or people. The reduction of the Army to 72,500 is a step too far.

There seems to be a belief in government that future wars will be fought solely in cyberspace, using advanced technologies such as AI and quantum, and that there is no need for traditional military equipment and numbers. That is dangerously simplistic nonsense. Clearly, those new things are very important to the way we fight a war, but we need more than that. Greater integration of traditional maritime, land and air capabilities with the domains of cyber and space, and increasing investment in those domains, makes sense, but it does not mean spending less, I am afraid, on the traditional areas: they cannot be cut. For example, the advantages of high tech in helping the Ukrainians have been highlighted in this recent conflict, but the Ukrainians still need boots on the ground. The steady pressure of heavy forces is grinding them down, and we ignore that at our peril. Tanks, for example, are not redundant. The fact that so much effort and expense are put into destroying them shows that they remain important on the battlefield. No, we do not need large tank armies, but my goodness we still need tanks.

One area we need to note is the recently increased Russian jamming of GPS receivers on the drones that Ukraine has been using to such good effect to locate the enemy, direct artillery fire and attack tanks. They are now becoming ineffective because of Russian jamming of GPS. I have spoken before in the House about our vulnerability to GPS jamming: we really have to do something, and I think this needs urgent government attention. So is this now being done and co-ordinated, because it is a crucial risk to us?

The Government have a choice over whether we spend what is required to ensure the safety of our nation in defence terms to stop world war, look after our dependencies and our people or not. At present, I believe they are getting the choice wrong. The decline in military capability is a choice, and not one we should have made in a highly chaotic and very dangerous world. With war raging in Europe, and possibly extending to a world war, there is a need for an immediate uplift in defence spending.