House of Commons Hansard Debates for 23 Feb 1993

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connections and that legacy also means that we have a particular responsibility to take the lead in trying to develop the new world order and to create peace in areas where there is conflict. My last point has not yet been mentioned and I hope that the House will forgive me if I dwell on it for a few minutes. An important part of international peacekeeping should be the development of international election monitoring and election machinery. I was pleased, 10 days or so ago, to be at a round table in the Palais des Nations in Geneva and to find that the British Government had sent a senior official to a meeting which was at the invitation of the Swedish Government. They are proposing that an international electoral institute should be established under the authority of the United Nations but not a part of the United Nations machinery, with the capacity to assist the process of creating multi-party democracies.

The reason why that is directly related to international peacekeeping is simply that if one looks at conflicts around the world today, or historically, it is difficult to find examples of mature parliamentary democracies, responsible to people, which have gone to war with one another. War is almost always created through some autocracy or other, so the development of genuine multi-party democracies as part of good government, as part of the new world order, should be attended to with far greater priority.

The moral that I draw from the experience of Angola is slightly different from that of the right hon. Member for Copeland. Like the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold), I was a monitor there, and I was also a monitor in the elections three years previously in Namibia. The two were like chalk and cheese. My conclusion is that there cannot be effective international election supervision on the cheap.

In Namibia, for an electorate of about 1 million, because of the unique circumstances there of the joint administration of the South Africans and the United Nations, about 4,500 international personnel were involved in the elections. In Angola, the figures were the other way around, with something like 450 personnel in charge of an electorate of 10 million. Although those elections were broadly described as free and fair, I am not so sanguine as the right hon. Member for Copeland. Those of us who stayed on after the election saw the difficulties created by the computer counting system breaking down and the suspicions that were aroused.

Mr. Jacques Arnold indicated dissent .

Sir David Steel : The hon. Member shakes his head, but I cite in support of my contention not an outside observer but the director of the elections himself, in an interview a few weeks ago on Angolan radio. His view, as the organiser of the elections, was that not enough international personnel were present to ensure that fraud and mistakes did not occur.

Mr. Arnold : I stayed on a little longer and returned on the same plane as the right hon. Gentleman. The problem was that the election authorities were so concerned with accuracy that they adopted a belt-and- braces approach and kept checking and rechecking the results all the way through. As is the case with our elections, certain results arriving first from the inner cities produced a distorted

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anticipated result. They gave a four-to-one lead to the MPLA in the early stages--in the same way as a Labour lead is seen in the early hours in our elections.

Sir David Steel : I do not dispute that. I am only saying that Angola's election monitoring mechanisms--the hon. Gentleman and I both witnessed them--and the preparation of the register were inadequate by our standards. I am not arguing for a series of operations concerned with making sure that the icing on the cake is right--frankly, that is what election monitoring is all about, and I have been involved in quite a lot of it--but for the existing arrangements to be replaced with something that will ensure that the cake itself is baked in the first place : that is to say, the underlying conditions for elections exist ; the electoral organisation in the particular country is genuinely independent ; broadcasts are available equally to all parties ; and the electoral register is properly prepared well in advance. All of that requires something more than visiting experts such as the hon. Member for Gravesham being present for a few days.

Dr. John Cunningham : The same is true in respect of the South African elections.

Sir David Steel : The right hon. Gentleman is right. With the South African elections in prospect, there will again be the need for something like a monitoring exercise.

I hope that the Government will give even more support than that which they have already lent tentatively to the Swedish Government's initiative in establishing an international monitoring agency. It would have the added advantage of being independent from government. Commendable though the work of the UN and of the Commonwealth election monitoring teams has been, both are organisations of government. One needs an organisation which is not directly related to government but only to nation states and is able to deal with all parties in nation states on a genuinely independent basis. Such an agency would also have the advantage of co-ordinating the work of the many existing organisations--they are beginning to multiply--which deal with election monitoring. We saw in Kenya the difficulty that arises if people arrive and say that the elections are free and fair and then depart hastily, perhaps leaving others to make more critical judgments. There is a strong case for one expert, international body co-ordinating all the others. I hope that the Government will give that proposal much greater and more urgent public support as part of the general scene of international peacekeeping.

5.53 pm

Mr. David Howell (Guildford) : This debate provides a welcome opportunity to discuss international peacekeeping and the United Nation's changing role. I hope that the evidence given at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on the subject is of some help to the House, and that the same will be true of the Committee's report on the "Agenda for Peace" agenda and of this country's interest in seeing it unfold when it is finally published.

We have been given, in knowledgeable speeches, an interesting grand tour of all the world's trouble spots, which add up to one central reality that we must confront. In the post-cold war world, there is increasing demand on every side and on every occasion for United Nations resources and troops and military personnel, and for United Nations-blessed military personnel. That will

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develop in every conceivable way. We heard from the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) that the United Nations is being urged to move in to election monitoring, producing new constitutions, and perhaps even producing mandates to run whole countries--as has been hinted, in Somalia, possibly in Bosnia, and elsewhere.

From the old attitude that the United Nations could not do very much, the view today is at the opposite extreme, and the United Nations is expected to deliver fantastically high expectations on every front. We must adapt our own thinking, policies and interests to that new reality, if we do not want to be caught out by the pace of events.

Demands will be increasingly insistent, especially on countries such as ours that are permanent members of the Security Council, and there will be an increasing blurring of roles between peacekeeping and peace enforcement- -the idea touched on in "An Agenda for Peace", which itself raises the difficult question of how one enforces peace and what kind of heavy weaponry should be used.

There is also a blurring between humanitarian activity and military intervention. Nowhere is that more evident than in the Bosnian tragedy. Bosnia is supposed to be a civilian operation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to deal either with refugees or people whom it is thought will become refugees. It is to those people that the UN has tried to provide relief. The military involvement, in UNPROFOR 2, is to protect those delivering the relief.

We see before our eyes--this process is continuing even as we debate--a gradual merging of the need to deliver relief into a greater and greater military commitment. Those right hon. and hon. Members who have been to the region--I believe that a number have--have heard the debate on the ground. Some relief workers asked for the military to go away altogether because soft-skin vehicles escorted by hard-skin vehicles become the unnecessary targets for snipers. Other relief workers asked for the military to transport all the relief supplies, because that was thought the only way that the supplies could get through. That view was prevalent a week or two ago in the UNHCR--particularly after it tragically lost some of its personnel.

In the past two or three weeks, other voices have been raised, asking whether the military could not go a little further and open the roads by force, because it was ridiculous that the roads should be closed by one Serbian waving a kalashnikov. It was said that the roads to Sarajevo and to the isolated and beseiged Bosnian-Muslim towns in eastern Bosnia should be forced open.

The latest development is the Washington proposal, which is being aired and considered, to make massive air drops of relief supplies--not just into Sarajevo from Zagreb and Split, as in the past, but into the Serbian- Bosnian heartland, where such a move would be regarded as against the Serbian-Bosnian agenda. That view may be regrettable, wrongful, and monstrous, but such air drops may be regarded as potentially hostile acts. That is a dangerous further move and one that must be carefully considered. Our eyes must be wide open to the fact that humanitarian relief and the desire to deliver it through international agencies and the United Nations is gradually being transformed into a military commitment.

We played it slightly differently in Iraq, where the military carried relief supplies from the start. The

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UNHCR did not have a mandate to organise aid. Many would say that the Iraqi operation was highly successful, especially where British forces were involved. We should continue to take that kind of approach in Bosnia. Incidentally, I agree with the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) about getting relief direct to the Kurds and Shi'ites.

I ask those responsible for policy not to contemplate the argument that some deal ought to be done with Saddam Hussein because he is the only man and a counterweight to Iran. That is nonsense. Far from being a counterweight, Saddam creates a weak Iraq. As long as he rules there, there will be no counterweight to the mullahs and the ayatollahs. We need a democratic Iraq, autonomous and federal in nature, to provide a balance with Iran ; otherwise there will be no stability in the middle east.

All the principles by which we used to stand--no intervention in internal affairs, humanitarian relief only, blue beret peace-keeping involving very light weapons--are being breached as the demands of the world, and the new conditions there, impose pressure for more heavily armed and more direct intervention by the military. Let me issue a plea to the Government, and to others who think about these matters : we should anticipate the problems, observe new situations as they emerge and prepare for the event--indeed, try to shape it by our policy.

We should apply our minds, with the greatest vigour, to four major aspects. First, there is the question--raised by both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Copeland--of the United Nations and its resources. Clearly, United Nations financing is not satisfactory. It is not just a case of delayed payments, although the amount involved is considerable : I have been told that $908 million is unpaid for routine United Nations operations, and about $850 million for peacekeeping. Against that, however, must be set the substantial physical contributions made by both the United States and Britain.

My point is both that the finance must be organised more effectively, and that the problem of trying to organise the military forces needed for every emergency on an ad hoc basis must be overcome. By the time the forces have been organised and the funds raised, the whole situation has changed, often for the worse. I know that the Boutros-Ghali proposal for earmarking or standby forces is not popular in London, but I think that it should be examined carefully. We might be able to make real economies in our defence expenditure if we could organise our forces logistically, in ways likely to meet the pattern of United Nations demand--likely, that is, to fit into an overall pattern, in which every country produces a particular logistical capability rather than an amorphous block of forces.

Secondly, we shall have to develop a much more effective contribution to preventive diplomacy. As has been pointed out, the deployment of forces in Macedonia and Kosovo is rightly being considered ; in such cases, "a stitch in time" applies vividly, and effective preventive diplomacy will save many costs later. Thirdly, we must recognise that the old restraint of the United Nations charter concerning intervention in internal affairs has, in practice, begun to crumble. It began to crumble in Kurdistan and Iraq ; it has crumbled further in

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the new Balkan states that have sprung into life. The activities of the United Nations are now creeping out of the chapter 6 area into the area of chapter 7 and article 42 : soon, they may creep into the area of article 43, which sanctions the organisation of military force to take military action in various countries in the name of international peace and security. In a world that is expanding before our eyes, we must organise our own military and other resources to make an effective contribution.

Fourthly, there is the matter on which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary rightly touched--the strengthening of the United Nations itself. Several questions arise. First, is the set-up--the establishment of the veto, the five permanent members of the Security Council, the rotation of Security Council members and the General Assembly--capable of giving authority and power to United Nations activities in the future? I entirely accept that the present operation works extremely well ; certainly it worked in the Gulf, although things are not going at all well for the United Nations effort in other areas, such as Cambodia, and possibly Angola. That is very regrettable. Nevertheless, the Security Council has operated pretty effectively, and it seems a great pity to try to stir it up. The fact remains, however, that two of the richest countries in the world--Japan and Germany--are not involved. They are moving very slowly, because their constitutions do not allow them to take on the responsibility of permanent Security Council membership at this stage, and they will not be ready to make their pitch until they have that status. In the meantime, however, I am sure that it is right for other Security Council members--us in particular, perhaps--to say, "We continue to be members of the Security Council, but we recognise its inadequacies, the difficulties and the case for change."

We should present constructive, not obstructive, ideas--I am not saying that we are presenting obstructive ideas--showing how the structure of the Security Council can be reformed and modernised in ways that will not damage its efficiency, and will not open up an unending squabble between all the continents about which should be Security Council members. Some interesting and positive ideas are floating around, and I feel that they should be codified and supported by this country.

Those are the new roles that will be imposed on us--roles that, indeed, we already face as we contemplate the vast spread of troubles that exists everywhere from Liberia to Cyprus. I have mentioned Cambodia, but a dozen other places are involved. I believe that, in all, 26 operations are proceeding : now that the Americans are in Somalia, more than 60,000 troops are operating around the world, either UN-blessed or wearing blue berets.

This is a major operation, and it can be said without fear of contradiction that it will expand, placing enormous additional strains on the United Nations and its secretariat--which, far from being an overblown bureaucracy, is grossly undermanned in many respects. We in this country must develop effective policies to deal with those developments, both in our own interests and in order to contribute in the way that we wish.

To do that, we need to adopt three stances, or qualities, here in London. First, we need a strong United Kingdom foreign policy, which must not be seen simply as a Euro-blur. Of course we have interests in common with our European neighbours ; but, to be an effective United

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Nations member, the country needs effective and well-articulated foreign policies, and an explanation of those policies to offer our United Nations and, in particular, our American colleagues. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will put those points to the President of the United States when they meet.

Secondly, we need a strong Foreign and Commonwealth Office. UN work is beginning to overload the FCO with all sorts of new requirements that are not often debated, but are very time-consuming. I note from our work on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that the FCO is considering not opening new missions but closing existing missions, in order to meet some of the overload. I also note that, in terms of overseas missions, we run well behind our neighbouring continental allies, the French and the Germans, and only a little ahead of the Italians ; and that our cultural diplomacy effort, which is all part of weaving an effective role in the UN, is very much weaker than that of the French and the Germans.

We could pay a high cost for those deficiencies if we do not analyse carefully what we are trying to do. We want a strong Foreign and Commonwealth Office, capable of meeting the large load of new work.

Another Department that needs strength and support is the Overseas Development Administration. In the world that we are discussing today, the ODA is becoming less a development Ministry than a Ministry of emergencies- -a Ministry that must meet an endless string of emergencies, ranging from the manmade horrors of Bosnia to the natural disasters and starvation in the Sudan and Ethiopia, and to earthquakes and so forth.

We need to be sure that we are not getting our priorities wrong in retaining our undoubtedly limited resources in areas where they are not contributing to the meeting of emergencies, and starving our agencies--led by the ODA--of resources. Those agencies, usually prompted by enormous public pressure, must swiftly meet the emergencies that develop.

Those emergencies are being met very effectively in Bosnia, but I suspect that, even in Bosnia, the balance of resources between actual relief work and the military input--an excellent job is being done in the military respect--suggests that protection costs much more than actual relief. This raises questions as to whether the balance is right.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey and Walton (Sir G. Pattie) set a standard of brevity that we cannot beat. None the less, we are required to be brief. Thus, I do not have time to mention all the environmental, development and arms control work of the United Nations. These are all aspects of the attempt to keep peace, to prevent conflict, to prevent endless killing and horror in this uni-polar--no longer bi-polar--world.

I recognise that such operations mean expenditure in terms of manpower and resources. Our instinct is to say that we cannot afford them. I end by saying that, against that--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. The right hon. Gentleman is equally caught by the 10-minute rule, which is now operating.

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6.10 pm

Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North) : I hardly needed that reminder, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Anyone rising to take part at this stage in a debate on such a subject and speaking with some authority might be considered by some people to be somewhat arrogant. That may be seen as applying especially to me, as my track record shows that I asked a Conservative Member to see me outside the Chamber for less than pacific purposes. However, in the remaining nine-and- a-half minutes, I want to make specific remarks about the British role in peacekeeping.

When I was on the Parliamentary Armed Services Trust, I spent some time in Northern Ireland with the Light Infantry. I suppose that the role is more policing than peacekeeping, but there is a great common area. About 18 months later I met the same unit in Berlin. As I reported to the House on a previous occasion, members of the unit dragged me to one side and, while expressing great joy at seeing me again, belaboured me for being "one of those bloody politicians who sent us over here to do a soddin' awful job with one arm tied behind our backs". That is the kind of approach that I want to talk about. Last week the Select Committee on Defence visited Split and Zagreb and areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The group that I was with had direct experience of the rules of engagement of our troops in UNPROFOR 2 and those in UNPROFOR 1. There are some serious differences. UNPROFOR 2 is concerned largely with humanitarian aid to the heartland of Bosnia, which is either distributed by our personnel or made ready by our personnel to be collected by local bodies. The United Kingdom's contribution to UNPROFOR 1 is somewhat different. That group is concerned largely with medical and hygiene provision for the battalions that have been installed to supervise the United Nations protection areas under the first Vance plan. It includes contingents from Russia, Belgium, Argentina, Canada, Nepal, Jordan, Czechoslovakia, Nigeria, Denmark, Poland, France, Kenya, Sweden, Finland, America and quite a number of other countries.

I learned the chilling lesson that some of those contingents had arrived without any kind of equipment. They expected to be kitted out on arrival. Some of them turned up without any kind of training or experience. I learned that there is no proper planning cell in the United Nations and that there is no CQ module, no command, communications and control. General Sitash Nambia, to his eternal credit, was very loyal in saying that he had no problems with this. Contrary to some press reports, he said, he had the home telephone numbers of his United Nations superiors and could contact them at any time of the day or night.

Nevertheless, there are a number of engagements across the globe where United Nations contingents are trying to fulfil their mandate, and they can hardly be expected to communicate with superiors, at their homes, 24 hours a day. The whole situation is a farce and must be seen as such. Her Majesty's Government represent this nation, which prides itself on the way in which our young men and women are trained to fulfil political objectives on our behalf. The Government must see that those young men and women are not exposed to such nonsense.

I will tell the House about one of the more crazy things that we learned. Not only are United Nations personnel

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allowed to fire when they are fired upon, but in the Krajina protection areas they must surrender their weapons if required by a Serb or a Croat to do so. Is this why we train young men and women to defend this country? Is it right to tell them that they must not fire unless they are fired upon and that weapons must be given up if that demand is made? I do not want to spell "preposterous", as I am sure that hon. Members see what I am getting at.

To date, 27 United Nations personnel have been killed,and more than 300 seriously injured. Some of the latter were injured in road traffic accidents, but the accidents occurred as those people were trying to fulfil the crazy, confused mandate that we have allowed the United Nations to give them. I wish to make it very plain that I am not in any way criticising the personnel, and I am not being chauvinistic when I say that the professionalism, dedication and spirit of the people we met, travelled with and dined--ate, rather than dined--with was quite exemplary. It was great to see how they performed their duties. Indeed, it bred in me a kind of pride that I never thought I would feel.

It must be made plain, however, that if we are serious about maintaining a mature and responsible role in the international arena we must ensure that other nations engaging in such activity accept their responsibilities beforehand in a serious manner and send to the theatres people who are experienced, well trained, well equipped and dedicated to the task in hand. The political task that we set must be very clearly defined, and the personnel must be suitably equipped to achieve it. We must also ensure that, if an operation starts to fall apart, withdrawal can be accomplished with some semblance of security--and without undue casualty, which is the great danger in Bosnia.

6.19 pm

Mr. Nigel Forman (Carshalton and Wallington) : I will not follow the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) except to say that I thought his speech was most compelling and well worth reading by those hon. Members who did not have the privilege of hearing it. My remarks will be a trifle heretic, and for that reason I preface them by saying two things. The first is that I strongly agreed with the cautionary words of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in the concluding part of his speech. The second is that I strongly welcome the all-party agreement which is obvious in the House, at least today, on the importance of Britain's commitment to the United Nations--something voiced by the spokesmen for both the Labour and Liberal parties.

It is a platitude that most hon. Members and, I suspect, many in the country--but perhaps not quite as many as we in the House imagine--believe in the virtue of international peacekeeping. Indeed, both the need and the opportunities for it have grown dramatically in recent years, especially since the end of the cold war. I will not give the figures, because they have already been put on record in the debate.

Furthermore, the problem is given an extra twist by the dramatic growth of the global media, which has enormously increased public pressure on national

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Governments to "do something" when we see heart-rending pictures on the television screens in our living rooms night after night. As well as these changes, however, which have driven events and the response to events in one direction, other things have changed over the years, which ought to give us pause for thought and which constitute the basis of my argument this evening.

In particular, two forms of relative economic decline have taken place over the past two or three decades. One is that the United Kingdom, within what we now call the European Community, has declined in importance. Make no mistake : that is the reality borne out by the figures. The second is that the European Community itself, although it has grown from nine to 12 since we have been a member, with the prospect of a much larger Community towards the turn of the century, is nonetheless of relatively declining importance in the global economy and the global polity. Hon. Members on both sides need to understand these rather bleak and important facts.

So my conclusion already at this stage in my speech is that the time has come for us to cut our politico-military coat according to our economic cloth. I make no bones about that. I was glad to see that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, in his thoughtful speech at Chatham House a while ago, said :

"We cannot be everywhere and we cannot do everything."

That is obvious.

Singing the same song, or at any rate in harmony, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, in his lecture at the Royal United Services Institute, said :

"We should not commit military forces in circumstances where there is no military solution"--

I would add, as my own gloss, where there is no realistic prospect of a political solution, which I think is more relevant--

"but only a clamour for something to be done."

Amen to both sentiments.

Other things have changed as well which should necessitate a fundamental review of our whole external role in the world--I put it no lower than that. The first is the problem of military overstretch, which has been well identified by hon. Members on both sides, most recently in the report of the Select Committee on Defence. The second is the prospect of a fundamental review of all forms of public expenditure, which, I would remind the House, was announced to the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), the Chief Secretary, just a few weeks ago.

The third is the developing debate about the new role and structure of the United Nations, already alluded to in the debate, and notably the vexed and rather ticklish question for us, as British citizens, of British and French participation as permanent members of the Security Council reflecting as it does two of the greatest myths--or pretences--which emerged from the immediate post-war period, if we are honest about it. So we must be concerned about the point that Joe Rogaly made very well in an article in the Financial Times a while ago, when he warned us of the insidious danger for this country of being "hooked on the glory drug" when we can afford the drug less and less.

The fourth point is the parallel increase in the economic capacity, and increasingly in the political will as well of countries such as Germany and Japan, the two so-called losers of world war 2, which now enables them

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notwithstanding their constitutional inhibitions, which are beginning to be dispelled, to carry more of the burden of global responsibilities and of international peacekeeping ; and it is absolutely right that they should do so. In this context, it is perhaps quite encouraging--a sign of the times--that German troops now serve on UN operations, as I understand it, in Somalia, and Japanese troops on UN operations in Cambodia. It is a good step in the right direction.

It is sobering again to note that, in 1970, on the basis of gross domestic product per capita--I want to read these figures into the record--Germany was fifth, Japan was 17th and the United Kingdom was 12th in the world. The latest figures that I have are for 1991. On the same basis, Germany was fourth, Japan sixth and the United Kingdom 18th. That is the economic basis on which we must build whatever policy we can sensibly afford.

My fifth point is the evidence of declining public support among the British people to allow any Government of this country gratuitously to accept disproportionate global peacekeeping burdens, especially if other, stronger, nations seem not to pull their weight, and if our external effort appears to be made at the expense of more pressing domestic economic and social needs. A good deal of opinion poll evidence, which I have no time to read into the record, shows exactly how the public reacts to these matters. It is somewhat different from the way in which some of us here who follow these matters see it ourselves.

So what am I saying? My argument is not that we abdicate altogether our external role in the world, but rather that it should be given a sharper and more concentrated focus--less of the wide angle, and more of the telephoto lens. We should limit the range of roles that we try to perform We should concentrate on fewer of them, but do them even better than we already do them.

We should concentrate on things like more rapid response intervention, which we do well ; this implies fewer long-term peacekeeping roles of the kind that we are doing in Cyprus, for example, and for which I see little justification in today's world. We should put more emphasis on the support for the civilian power in Northern Ireland, because we have to--it is an integral part of our country--but that implies less emphasis upon the minimal, residual presence, which is the result of historical factors, in Germany, through the British Army of the Rhine.

We should encourage our stronger allies, particularly our partners such as Germany and Japan, to do more. In this process, we should recognise reality --here I make an unfashionable point--and consider ceding our place as a permanent member of the Security Council to Japan, while encouraging France to cede her place to Germany. After all, she appears to have been prepared to cede practically everything else to Germany in recent times, including her currency, so why not cede her place on the Security Council as well, for good measure? Beyond the military sphere, we should concentrate more on our considerable diplomatic, cultural and overseas development skills of the kind to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) referred, We have a top-notch diplomatic service and priceless assets in the British Council, the BBC and our higher education institutions. We have one of the most respected and cost-effective overseas aid programmes in the world. We should play to those strengths. It is better

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to do fewer things well than to attempt to do too many and fail for lack of capacity, and increasingly for lack of public will. 6.27 pm

Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South) : The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) made a courageous speech, which will not go down too well with his colleagues when they get round to reading it. He argues that we should become Belgium with nuclear weapons, and I do not think that everybody on his side is quite prepared to make that leap in their own lifetime from super-power, to major power of the second rank, to slipping down the second division into the third division and out into the Beazer Homes league, if the league still exists, because military power underpins diplomatic power. It is absolutely right that one must develop one's roles commensurate with one's economic ability to sustain those roles.

The irony is that, with the transformation from the cold war, far from cuts being easily made, quite the reverse is the case, because one does not, if one wishes to embark on peacekeeping operations, dispense with those weapons that were necessary in the previous era and move into light tanks and equipment that was not central in the cold war. We need both capabilities, because there is no guarantee that the only conflicts that we are likely to be engaged in for the future will require Warrior and light tanks and light equipment. There are so many threats that still require the old-fashioned military capability. It is right to repeat the thesis of Paul Kennedy from "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" that countries that overstretch themselves eventually collapse.

A famous hymn says :

"Crown and thrones may perish

Kingdoms rise and wane."

That is most apt in relation to Britain. I shall not belabour the tempting political point that our economic capability has so deteriorated that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington can contemplate our playing only a minute role in international relations. That is one of the consequences of our economic decline in the past 13 years.

Boutros-Ghali said recently that there would probably be 400 countries in the world in the next decade. Many of them will be created as a result of conflict. It was not meant to be like that. The end of the cold war was meant to usher in an era of peace and harmony. In many ways, we can look back on the cold war--this sounds rather perverse--with some nostalgia. It might have been uncomfortable if one lived in eastern Europe with low living standards, but nevertheless there was some stability, which has disappeared. We are now facing a crisis. The shifting of the tectonic plates is the finest analogy used to describe the fundamental transformation in international security. We are entering such a period of instability that even the Ministry of Defence recognises it. The uncertainties that we now have to cope with will cause enormous problems to the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office.

The late Evan Luard identified in the mid-1980s 127 wars that had taken place since 1945, during the period of apparent stability. Jane's Defence Weekly identified no fewer than 73 hot spots throughout the world. In 1991, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute identified 30 wars that were taking place, and the Royal

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Military College, Sandhurst, identified 45 possible sources of conflict and tensions in the former Warsaw treaty organisation area alone.

What is more threatening is the fact that some of those crises have already surfaced. In some, the tensions are quickening ; in some, the tensions and problems are stirring ; but there are many instances, largely unknown, in which the issues are quiescent--lying dormant--but could escalate to a crisis at any time. Those are the sort of crises that we shall have to cope with.

In its seminal and influential report, the Select Committee on Defence made its own threat assessment, a "Strategic Setting". The warnings were there that one does not have the luxury of simply employing light forces on United Nations missions. We have identified a series of potential threats and crises to our national security that will be met only by a defence policy that can cope with a variety of contingencies.

The United Nations will be pivotal during the dangerous era that we are entering. It was rescued from its impotence by the ending of the cold war. The United Nations and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe will be very important, but they will not be panaceas for a more secure world or a substitute for institutions that, historically, have served us well and are undergoing a period of rapid transformation.

Until we achieve a more harmonious world, I argue very strongly that NATO is still required. The initiatives that NATO has taken to reach out to former eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union are very important, not simply an exercise in finding a job to do. We would be foolish indeed to see even the European Community assume that responsibility before it is time. We would be even more foolish to assume that one can abandon collective defence and security for a rather nebulous concept of the League of Nations revisited. Although the United Nations will be very important, it must surely be seen as a complement to existing institutions. The Ministry of Defence has now recognised that the world is rather dangerous. The statements of previous Secretaries of State and the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Mr. Hamilton) would make amusing reading in the light of their sudden Pauline conversion to a Hobbesian interpretation of international relations.

One must look for the institutions that will be important in the forthcoming decade. NATO will still be very important. The stakes have been raised by the Vance-Owen plan and by the Clinton acceptance of an American commitment to the plan. Up to 25,000 American troops have been promised to police the Vance-Owen plan, and NATO will probably be the implementing body of this. It has been said that 50, 000 to 60,000 troops--a corps--will be necessary to police the plan. Many would argue that we should not get too deeply into such a crisis.

I argue that not getting more deeply involved in the long term, and even in the medium term, is likely to be more horrendous and to have more devastating consequences on European security. When the Select Committee on Defence visited Croatia recently, I led the rear area brigade--what I call the lack of moral fibre brigade, which was not chosen to go into more dangerous

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country, several members of which are with us this evening. Most people assume that the only troops in Yugoslavia are the Cheshires, but many other troops from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Royal Fleet Auxiliary and from other countries are doing an excellent job. The UN must look at its rules of engagement and its mandate. I have been told that our commitment is likely to be short, but I give the House this pearl of wisdom and information. I saw in the port of Split 12 pool tables waiting to be delivered to the Army. That does not show that a British withdrawal from former Yugoslavia is imminent, nor should it be. The United States should exact something from its allies in any activity that it undertakes. That is the only way to bring the negotiating parties genuinely to the negotiating table. Diplomacy alone is superfluous ; diplomacy backed up by the threat of force is still critical.

The United Nations will assume an increasingly important role. If we are going to be 400 countries, the UN must play its part in securing that new world.

6.37 pm

Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland and Lonsdale) : I must first apologise to the House for missing a number of the speeches which followed the opening speeches and thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and Madam Speaker, for your tolerance ; I had to attend a meeting that I could not avoid.

I was much taken with the speech of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), who spoke of some people's nostalgia for the cold war. When the Warsaw pact and the Berlin wall crumbled, few people realised how within so few years we should find ourselves in the difficulties and uncertainties that grip us today. A number of bodies around the world are commendably seeking to find a new role in the dangerous world that has emerged. The United Nations--I shall talk about this later--is doing its best to cope with the rise in prestige in recent years. NATO is seeking a new role, we hope as an agency of the United Nations to deal with regional problems. The conference on security and co-operation in Europe, the other newly fledged organisation, is acquiring more expertise in peacekeeping and in actions to reduce tension. All these are to the good, and all must be encouraged.

We have to remember that, where there are international tensions, there are various levels of international response. First, we very often apply sanctions, and it is to these that I shall devote most of my comments today. Then there is the role of peacekeeping and, above all, the role of peacemaking and the reversal of invasion situations, as in Kuwait and the Falklands.

I believe that there is in the House, quite rightly, an understanding of the dangers of peacemaking and of how ill-fated a massive peacemaking operation in Yugoslavia would be. The lessons of the last world war are well remembered in the House, and rightly so. The public would soon tire of a procession of body bags coming back from Yugoslavia with little sign of peace being made. The House's advice to the Government to avoid peacemaking in Yugoslavia if they possibly can has been absolutely right.

There is in the world, particularly over Yugoslavia--and, indeed, Cambodia, where I am going with a delegation from the Foreign Affairs Committee at the

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