NATO and International Security

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. As the House can see, a number of Members wish to participate in this relatively short debate. I will not put a time limit on the Chair of the Select Committee, but I know he will show enormous self-restraint in the time he takes, because we have only a little more than an hour before the wind-ups begin.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. The wind-ups will begin no later than 4.40 pm. Six Members want to participate, so I am looking towards seven to eight minutes each to give everybody a fair whack, beginning with Sir Bernard Jenkin.

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[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The answer is that it is one of the policies that encourages Scots to vote to remain in the United Kingdom, which was the outcome of the referendum held on Scottish independence.

I will concentrate my remarks on a background debate that has been going on, which is whether this 85-day crisis that we are now in is evidence that somehow NATO has failed. I wish to contest that idea. It became axiomatic for decade after decade that war between major powers was unthinkable. It became our ingrained expectation. I was born 21 years after the end of the second world war, and it is now 77 years after the end of the second world war. Generations in this House and in our country have no folk or family memory of one of the defining moments, if not the defining moment, of our national history. Western Europe and the free world has to that extent become a victim of the success of NATO—success being peace in Europe and beyond Europe for decade after decade.

That success was based on two fundamental foundations: nuclear deterrence and NATO. That is not just because it provided collective security in Europe, but because it was binding—and still is binding—the US and Canadian security guarantees into the European security guarantees. It is the joining of transatlantic security that has made NATO so effective. Incidentally, one of the tragedies of the European Union is that it has gone down the path of trying to create a separate autonomous defence alliance outside NATO, which has corroded that automatic assumption that the United States and Europe will always act together.

Some still say that NATO has failed because of Ukraine, but NATO never declared that it would defend Ukraine. NATO is hardly to be accused of failing to deter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when it never specifically said that it would seek to deter that. There have been political failures by the Governments of NATO members in recent years, individually and collectively, but as the former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), said earlier, it was all laid out at the Munich security conference in 2007 by President Putin. Then we had the invasion of Georgia, the cyber-attacks, the Litvinenko murder, the violation of the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty—incidentally, that was unilateral rearmament by the Russians, rather than disarmament—the invasion of Crimea, the Salisbury poisonings, hybrid warfare, the weaponisation of gas, and the destabilisation of the Balkans. We ignored all those signals—the clearest possible signals—but the failure of the UK, the United States, the German Government and the French Government is a failure of our national strategies, not a failure of NATO.

Moreover, we can now say that NATO conventional forces are rather less inferior to Russian armed forces than we might have feared. The Russian forces, which are much larger and more extensively equipped than ours, have proved catastrophically incapable of delivering their intended effects. They are riven with corruption and have poorly maintained and poorly designed equipment. They are poorly led and incapable of conducting air superiority operations over a neighbouring country with meagre air defence of its own. They cannot defend their ships or run their logistics effectively.

In addition, we are finding that Russia has not dared to attack NATO countries even when they are actively supporting the resistance with arms to Ukraine. The first important lesson to take from the conflict is that we started out feeling much too timid about provoking Russian escalation. Perhaps the timing has been perfect, but I think we could have moved quicker and faster. I am delighted by the scale of the United States’ response to the crisis now, and I wish it had come earlier.

Still, we must be ready to respond to Russian escalation, the possible use of chemical weapons and even the possibility of a tactical nuclear strike in Ukraine. That risk would rise significantly if Russia declared that captured Ukraine territory was now sovereign Russian territory, because that would trigger a whole set of defence doctrines in Russian military doctrine that would legitimise in Russian minds the use of tactical nuclear weapons. I do not expect the Government to comment on this point, but I have every confidence that NATO’s SHAPE—Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe —in Belgium will be war-gaming escalation scenarios and will not be ruling out a vigorous response, as even the shadow Defence Secretary adverted to, involving co-ordinated retaliation to make sure that that escalation would be met with sufficient deterrence.

The second key lesson is that it is evident, if it was not obvious already, that the world is watching this conflict. The global implications of the outcome in Ukraine are profound. President Putin must not be seen to have gained from his illegal aggression, because of all the consequences for every other autocratic regime that is eyeing the neighbouring territory of another sovereign state. If we want to deter China, North Korea and any number of despotic regimes from thinking that they can behave in that way, we have to think in the same way that John Major and President Bush thought about the invasion of Kuwait, and that Margaret Thatcher insisted we had to think about the Falklands. The outcome of the conflict will be not just a watershed moment in European history, but a turning point in the history of the world. We must succeed and ensure that the Ukrainians win their war.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Let us say eight minutes, then everyone will get about equal time.

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[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

The ongoing terrible events in Ukraine remind us that we need to make sure that we not only maintain our defence expenditure, but invest wisely in capability that will ensure that we remain a credible NATO ally. We have seen recently in Ukraine how good equipment can blunt the attacks of the most aggressive invader. Op Orbital, which began in 2015 in response to Russian aggression in the Donbas and Crimea, has been a successful training mission to equip Ukrainian forces and is paying huge dividends now as Ukraine’s army has risen magnificently to the challenge. This is the best possible example of the value of investing in training and equipment.

The history of the last century shows us what happens when countries seek to appease dictators and are willing to trade other people’s freedoms for their own security. It is for this reason that the Washington treaty signed in 1949 bound the founding members of the Atlantic alliance together with a pledge enshrined in article 5 that an attack on one member was an attack on all. Since then, the Atlantic alliance, the most successful military alliance in history, has helped to ensure the freedom of this country and western Europe, especially during the cold war, in the face of an aggressive Soviet Union. A mark of its success is that the original group of 12 founding nations has expanded to 30 today. It is no coincidence that, as soon as they were able to escape the yoke of Soviet tyranny, our neighbours in central and eastern Europe sought to join NATO. The fact that now both Finland and Sweden—long bywords for neutrality—have taken the first steps to join the NATO alliance shows the attraction of it as well as its reputation.

This country has always placed NATO at the heart of its defence policy, and the Ministry of Defence characterises the UK’s armed forces as “Allied by design”. Unlike Russia, this country has allies and partners around the world, and our NATO allies know that the UK will stand with them. We train together on a regular basis—something which should never be sacrificed on the altar of savings by the Treasury. We must increase our defence expenditure.

As a former British Defence Secretary, Denis Healey—another gunner—who was the military beach commander at Anzio said in 1969:

“Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.” —[Official Report, 5 March 1969; Vol. 779, c. 551.]

Or, as we are seeing in the Ukraine, piles of rubble.

The invasion of Crimea by Russia in 2014 was a much-needed wake-up call for the Atlantic alliance, but it was not an easy matter to stir up all of its members. In 2016 President Obama spoke of “European free riders” who relied far too much on the United States for their security under the nuclear umbrella. In 2019 President Macron accused the alliance of being brain dead.

Since 2014 the UK has contributed elements in the air policing mission in the Baltic on five occasions, as well as on the ground in Estonia, in the NATO battlegroup, since it was established in 2017. One of my sons, Michael, a fourth generation gunner, a Bombardier with 1 Royal Horse Artillery, has served in Estonia with his regiment and has just returned from a major exercise in Germany. I am pleased to see that we now have a brigade headquarters in Estonia.

If Putin thinks that he can unsettle the NATO alliance by his casual reference to Russia’s “massive nuclear” forces, he is very much mistaken. Predictably, that has led to calls from some in this House, namely the Scottish National party, that we should rid ourselves of the nuclear deterrent. To those who say that we can never use it, I gently remind them that we are deploying it and relying on it every single day. Talk of the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia must also be dealt with by leaders being firm in their resolve to maintain the alliance’s undertaking that an attack on one is an attack on all.

Events in Ukraine have given the international community a shock, but Russia’s actions remind us all that rogue nation states still retain the capacity to act violently when they think they can get away with it. We were beginning to get used to the idea of counter-insurgency, grey zone and cyber warfare, believing that this was the pattern for future conflicts. Putin may have been encouraged by the weak western response to the situation in Syria and the weak response to his initial aggression in Georgia and Crimea. It is worth reminding ourselves that the mission in Afghanistan was a NATO one. It was begun as an article 5 mission—the only time article 5 has been invoked so far after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, so the shambolic abandonment of Afghanistan created a very dangerous perception of weakness of the west and NATO among our enemies around the world.

Russia is attempting to weaponise its gas supplies. This has long been foretold by those of us who warned of the dangers posed by the Nordstream gas pipeline. So alongside deterrence, we must relearn the need for resilience, in our supply chains as well as our food and energy security. I hope that the Government will give serious consideration to reinforcing our sovereign defence manufacturing capability.

While we congratulate ourselves on our united stance against Putin’s aggression, some members of the NATO alliance were initially reluctant to commit to it. In the Ministry of Defence Command Paper, the Government announced the creation of the Ranger Regiment. This, and the sort of training missions that we have seen in Operation Orbital, will boost the ability of our NATO allies to defend themselves.

The message from the House to our allies must be that for as long as the UK remains a leading member of NATO, we will invest in our security to ensure our freedom, and we recommend that all our NATO allies do the same.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. The winding- up speeches must begin no later than 4.40 pm. I call Mr Baron.

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[James Heappey]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will push on because I have only a minute and a half to go.

I pay tribute to our armed forces deployed right now across the entire eastern flank of NATO, in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, in the sea as well as in the air. Thousands of them are deployed, and they are enjoying their service alongside their NATO allies. They are coming to understand exactly what it is to be a part of NATO, believing in the collective defence of countries on the other side of Europe and being willing to give their lives in their defence, as the NATO treaty requires.

We will continue lethal aid to Ukraine for as long as it is required. We are sending in a great deal of our own stuff, but we are also bringing influence to bear to encourage others around the world to send theirs. Then there is the race for Ukraine to rearm more quickly than a sanction-ridden Russia. We are working hard with the Ukrainians to understand what their requirements will be, work out how to get them the platforms and deliver the training that they will need to operate them. Of course, colleagues in the rest of Government are working to rebuild Ukraine when the conflict finishes. We must not get carried away by any of the successes for Ukraine in recent weeks. A great deal of hard fighting remains. There is no celebration when Russia fails, but Russia is failing far too often. We will continue to do everything we can to support Ukraine. NATO will continue to reinforce its eastern flank to reassure our allies there, and the UK will continue to do all we can to ensure that Putin fails.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

It has been my honour to chair this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered NATO and international security.