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Britain's Strategic Interests
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): I must inform the House that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.13 pm
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife): I beg to move,
- That this House believes that the strategic interests of the United Kingdom will best be served by collective action through the United Nations, NATO, the Commonwealth, the European Security and Defence Identity and similar political, economic and military institutions and initiatives; is concerned that the opportunities for a reduction in nuclear weapons have been prejudiced by the refusal of the United States Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and by the proposal that the United States should deploy a system of National Missile Defence, if necessary in breach of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; welcomes the 'unequivocal' declaration of the five permanent members of the Security Council that they will seek to eliminate all nuclear weapons in fulfilment of their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; calls upon Her Majesty's Government to state, first, what its policy is towards the United States proposal for National Missile Defence and, secondly, what steps it proposes to take to fulfil its pledge to seek to eliminate nuclear weapons; congratulates the armed forces of the Crown on their successful military campaigns in Kosovo and Sierra Leone but expresses disappointment that in the latter case Her Majesty's Government has chosen to deploy UK forces independently of the United Nations peacekeeping force and not as part of it and thereby failed to strengthen the UN effort and to enhance its credibility; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to publish the policy criteria by which it determines that there is a need for intervention.
If we look back to the cold war, we will remember that the strategy was simple, and even simplistic. It was essentially that of mutually assured destruction. However, in the new security environment, which we accept as being much more volatile and much more unpredictable, what is the strategy that a medium-ranking economic power such as the United Kingdom should pursue?
One of the lessons that we learned from the cold war was that collective action through NATO was essential to success and even to survival. I believe that it is equally true in the new environment that collective action through NATO, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and in particular the European security and defence identity is the best way by which to ensure our security. Just as unilateralism was rejected in the cold war, so it should be rejected now.
I observe that the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), is to respond to the debate. I remember the days when he had something of a flirtation with unilateral action. I remember when battle was joined in the seaside towns of England between the unilateralists and the multilateralists, but the hon. Gentleman has come, by a somewhat circuitous route, to the position that I and others occupied at that time. I am only sorry my right hon.
Friend Lord Steel, with whom he had many jousts in the seaside towns of England, is not present this evening to observe at first hand this most remarkable of conversions.
Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South): Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Campbell: I should like to make some progress. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will try to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
There is an alarming drift towards unilateral action in international affairs. The failure of the United States Senate to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty--the CTBT--and the determination of the United States to press ahead with a system of ballistic missile defence in apparent breach of the anti-ballistic missile treaty are both disturbing and destabilising features of a determination on the part of the Americans to go it alone, compounded by American unwillingness to endorse the International Criminal Court and the procrastination in the United States in accepting the need to ban the deployment of land mines.
That seems a paradox at a time when the United States is the only military superpower left, and the threat to the interests of the United States has never been less.
Our own Government are not immune from this apparent trend. British forces have done well in Sierra Leone, but they deployed independently of the United Nations, and although they appear to be directing the activities of the UN force, they are not yet part of that force. Of course, they have secured the temporary credibility of the UN in Sierra Leone by their intervention, but they would have assured its permanent effectiveness had they been part of it from the beginning.
After the disasters of Rwanda and Srebrenica, after Somalia, the inadequacies of the United Nations have been freely admitted by the Secretary-General himself. In those circumstances, the credibility and the reputation of UN peacekeeping in Sierra Leone are at stake--if the House will forgive the colloquialism, they are on the line. Another failure could destroy both credibility and reputation for a long time to come.
As a permanent member of the Security Council and as the former colonial power, with our long history of involvement in Sierra Leone, and indeed with the present Prime Minister's personal invitation to President Kabbah to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh some two years ago at a time when President Kabbah had been ousted--all these factors, which have been used to justify intervention in the way in the past few weeks, were equally powerful, and I would argue more powerful, reasons not just for intervention, but for our participation in the United Nations force.
It is disingenuous of the Government to deflect questions on the issue of national missile defence by saying that no request has yet been made for the use of Fylingdales, and that no decision will be taken until such a request is made. One does not have to go very far in the defence and security community in Washington to hear people say that there is rather more of an understanding about these matters than has ever been revealed to the House of Commons.
As the noble Lord Robertson, recently the Secretary of State for Defence, has acknowledged, national missile defence at the instigation of the Americans has the capacity to cause severe damage to NATO. More than that, it has the capacity to refuel a nuclear arms race, particularly in Asia.
Deployment of national missile defence could result in the Chinese deciding to increase their nuclear arsenal, with the risk of a corresponding and chilling escalation by India and Pakistan: the domino theory in reverse. The statement that the United Kingdom has no view on national missile defence leads me to the inevitable conclusion that reports of a material difference of opinion between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence are unquestionably true. The amendment confirms that disingenuousness. It states that the Government
- wishes to see the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and strategic stability, preserved.
The House is entitled to ask the Government to outline their proposals for achieving those objectives of ensuring the preservation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and of strategic stability. What advice are the British Government giving their United States counterparts? So far, the House has not been favoured with a sufficiently frank statement of Government policy.
In my judgment, the determination to proceed with national missile defence rests on a flawed assessment of threat. Of course rogue states and deeply unpleasant regimes exist. However, we must ask ourselves whether they are so lacking in comprehension that they would threaten to use, or actually use, weapons of mass destruction against the overwhelming nuclear superiority of the United States. The classic definition of threat is capability plus intention. Rogue states may acquire the capability, but it is difficult to envisage circumstances in which they would have the intention.
If national missile defence is necessary to defend the United States, that means that deterrence is considered inadequate. Yet deterrence sustained us through the long watches of the cold war and prevented Saddam Hussein, who undoubtedly had the means of launching weapons of mass destruction, from doing that in the Gulf war. During the famous exchange between James Baker, who was then Secretary of State in the United States Government, and that extraordinary survivor, Mr. Tariq Aziz, James Baker said that, if weapons of mass destruction were used, the response would be disproportionate. The precise nature of the response was never made clear, but those in Baghdad who skulked in their shelters could not exclude the possibility that the use of weapons of mass destruction would have triggered a nuclear response.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman read the extraordinary book by Richard Butler? There is no reason why he should have read it because it was only published a fortnight ago. The first pages outline the surmise that the continental United States was under considerable threat from the biological weapons of Saddam Hussein. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman happy that such an unlikely premise formed the basis of a cruel action against Iraq?
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