Examination of Witnesses(Questions 20-39)
WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2002
RT HON
MR GEOFF
HOON MP, AIR
MARSHAL ROB
WRIGHT AFC AND
MR EDWARD
OAKDEN
20. That was a good answer, and it is an answer
with which I personally agree, but I think it is an answer to
a question that I did not think I asked. What I am seeking is
to follow Mike Hancock. Everybody knows that there is quite a
differential of spending as between the countries of the NATO
alliance, therefore the question is not just at the minute what
the other countries can contribute; it is how do we accelerate
them contributing more? I am really just seeking from you whether
it is in your mind to be understanding of the positions and so
on, but to put the accelerator down and say, "Come on,"
in a limited way.
(Mr Hoon) Certainly I want to see other countries
spending more—I can say that absolutely without qualification—but,
at the same time, other countries also have to spend better. If
you look at the spending levels of NATO countries, you will see,
for example, Turkey and Greece very high in the lists, but not
necessarily spending their defence budgets in perhaps the way
that we might want to see, looked at from the perspective of NATO
or the European Union overall.
Chairman
21. That was put very delicately.
(Mr Hoon) A point that George Robertson used to make—and
I think strictly relevant to the idea of a NATO reaction force—is
that there are something like 2 million people in uniform in Europe,
but how many of those can we actually get into a crisis quickly?
A handful, comparatively speaking. So it is also about—and
this is part of the process that Prague was engaged on—having
the right kinds of forces. That means not necessarily spending
money on developing ever more infantry people, but actually being
able to develop the kinds of capabilities that allow you to get
perhaps a smaller number of infantry men into a crisis quickly.
That means having a long logistics tail, and being able to support
and sustain them when they get there, a very different concept.
I would not want you to simply assume that spending more is the
answer. It is part of the answer but it is by no means all of
the answer, and part of it is spending the money on the kinds
of capabilities that we require today as opposed to the ones that
we had to fight a potential war against the Soviet Union, which
is essentially how still too many countries, and frankly NATO
itself, are organised.
22. I would not wish to mislead you. I agree
with you. I do not think it is just money either, but it is a
key component. Moving on, what commitments did the United Kingdom
give at Prague for its capability contribution?
(Air Marshal Wright) If I can add something to your
previous question, what has not really come out so far is that
the NATO Response Force is the vehicle for attaching some of these
capabilities that will enable us to come up with the shorter-term
developments that we need. The problem with DCI over the last
four years is that it was such a broad front. We now have specifice
developments. We have readily identified those specifics, we link
them to the NATO Response Force, and that will be a very significant
vehicle that will give us time lines, as again was mentioned earlier,
to take forward in the next two or three years. I think it is
a very good vehicle to create a break through. In terms of what
the UK is contributing, we, as you know, have been pretty well
up the scale on our total commitment in terms of Force Goals and
so on, with a very high percentage of acceptance and so on. We
were asked to tackle four specific areas by Lord Robertson: NBC
protection, deployable CS and CSS—combat support and combat
service support—and we keep talking about the highly technical
end of the spectrum, but with bridges, NBC equipment and so on
it is equally important to know where the shortfall is. We were
asked, and we have committed to producing the deployable CSS for
two brigades, the NBC equipment for two, the same, and that is
very significant in the context of this NATO Response Force. We
are looking at the strategic lift along with other nations that
were asked to look at it. There were four requests that we were
asked to respond to; secure communication and CIS is the third.
We have made a very good, I would call it, three and three-quarters
out of four attempt. If I may just make one plug, if you look
at the NATO force structure work that is underway over the last
two years, the UK has taken a very significant lead with the Allied
Rapid Reaction Corps in developing and spending on the right equipment
in that headquarters in terms of deployability, a very significant
commitment, and I think there the UK has taken the lead in setting
the new template for deployable mobile headquarters.
(Mr Oakden) There are also new ways in which NATO
is now looking at providing this equipment. There is some recognition
that in the same way you cannot expect every single nation to
provide the whole range of forces, so one way of doing it is for
a group of nations to get together and say provide specific air
to air refuelling capability, or a specific group to get together
and concentrate on heavy lift and so on. So not everyone tries
to do it together, but you get sub-groups trying to concentrate
on particular areas.
23. I understand the answer about the British
contribution; that is clear and unambiguous, but I still get the
very strong impression that it is just a question of "Oh,
well, they have contributed what they can," and it is not
always very much. I just have a very strong impression, attending
the European Union Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee yesterday,
that the representatives of other countries are perfectly happy
to get defence on the cheap. Somebody else can come in and pay
for it. Yes, of course, they can give niche contributions and
so on, but the big players will contribute the big money. Against
that background, is this a sensible distribution of labour as
between the countries?
(Mr Hoon) I do not think I can properly answer that
question. I do not think it would be sensible to try and do so.
What I can say is that the idea of specialisation certainly allows
those countries who historically might not have been able to make
any kind of contribution because they were developing forces,
for example, that were simply duplicating the forces or capabilities
that are already available to the bigger players, as you put it,
to now, if they choose to do so, identify those key shortfalls
and make a contribution. The previous Dutch defence minister announced
publicly that his priority for defence spending would be to ensure
that any Dutch defence spending was geared to satisfying the needs
of the Headline Goal. Again, I think it is an interesting political,
constitutional question as to whether, for example, if a British
Government took the same line, there would not be those in the
United Kingdom who might criticise that as being some breach of
sovereignty, as some failure to protect the interests of the United
Kingdom as against an international organisation. I would be interested
in your views on that, because you might take a different position
from the one that I have set out.
24. I cannot imagine why you take that view
at all, but of course, the relationship here is we ask questions
and I have one last question to ask. I clearly am not going to
get much further with this. Let me just ask a practical question.
If we take the NATO Response Force, which of course was discussed
at Prague, just let us suppose there is going to be a capability
shortfall, and given the experience of the past, it is not unreasonable
to suppose that that might happen, and then the emergency comes
along. What do we do then?
(Mr Hoon) We do what we have always done, which is
that we improvise, but in truth, we can deliver capabilities.
The United Kingdom has a very sophisticated ability at short notice
to deliver forces almost anywhere in the world. That is the case
with a number of other countries, perhaps not as many as we might
like, but I think the idea of the reaction force is to concentrate
minds so that we are moving in that particular direction, and
it does reflect a change in the kind of threats that we are having
to deal with. If we had had this conversation 50 years ago, we
would have been talking about the need to be able to move infantry
forces quickly into the German plain to confront a threat from
the Soviet Union. That has gone. You would have been pressing
me, saying, "Why can't we train and equip more infantry to
conduct that essentially land battle?" We now have to adjust
our forces and our capabilities in the light of the kind of strategic
threats that we face today, and they are different. But that does
not mean that we can simply switch off and switch on the old capabilities
and the new ones. There is going to be a challenge in order to
deliver them, and that is what we are engaged on. I share your
impatience, because defence ministers are always impatient about
the need to get these kinds of capabilities, but the whole point
of establishing targets, establishing multinational elements is
to enable other countries to share my impatience, and yours.
25. I have no other questions, but I would merely
make the observation that I suspect what is going to happen—and
I am prognosticating—is that these other countries, of course,
because they wish to have defence on the cheap will simply say
exactly what you have said: "The Brits and one or two others
can mobilise very significant forces so we will leave it at that."
(Mr Hoon) Can I just say this? I think that significantly
underestimates the determination of other countries to play their
part. One of the most difficult experiences I have had as defence
minister—and I accept that James is generally and historically
right in saying that what happens is that countries have to go
round encouraging others to participate—was in persuading
other countries at the time of the ISAF deployment that they could
not send their infantry forces to Afghanistan, calling colleagues
who I suspect had been in the position of having had their prime
minister or president announce their deployment to Afghanistan
and saying, "Actually, we don't need an infantry battalion.
What we actually need is some specialists who can deal with unexploded
ordnance or who can repair the runway at Kabul airport."
It is that kind of specialisation. I see absolutely no reason
why a smaller country cannot provide those sorts of niche capabilities.
At the moment too many, I accept, are still trying to provide
the infantry battalion, and that is why I say it is about spending
better as well as spending more.
Chairman
26. One question on putting moral pressure on
the slackers who outnumber the contributors. There is an annual
process in NATO where countries are sent questionnaires, they
have to fill them in, say what their capabilities were, what they
were going to buy in the future, and a group of NATO personnel
give them a bad time. Does that have any effect?
(Mr Hoon) I think what you are talking about, in the
modern phrase, is auditing, and I think we need to maintain that
pressure. That is part of what I know George is very keen to see.
He has been using a great deal of moral pressure in recent times,
and I know that he intends to continue that.
(Air Marshal Wright) There is a great pressure now
to introduce audit, to use the Secretary of State's words, or
an evaluation and certification. If I go back to the NATO force
structure work, for the first time NATO formed a team that went
out to the headquarters with a list of over 400 requirements,
and you had to pass the 400 requirements in an operational scenario,
an exercise, before you were certified for use as a NATO force.
This policy is going to be implemented all the way through NATO's
front line, including the NATO Response Force, so there is that
sort of dynamism being developed. That is not peer pressure; that
is pass or fail, and the results of failing are self-evident.
27. They should publish the failures on the
Internet.
(Air Marshal Wright) That is a possibility. The European
nations, because of this peer pressure with the headquarters they
put forward, have spent something like '2 billion developing the
proper capabilities. It is the intent to apply this pressure—and
it is a certified, evaluated pressure—all the way through
the NATO Response Force, so hopefully we will gradually get to
a much firmer, not hollowed out structured system as we take our
capabilities forward.
Mr Howarth
28. Is there a sub-committee of NATO which is
analysing the particular specialisations that each individual
nation claims to be able to contribute and trying to bring all
those together, and if so, what is it called?
(Air Marshal Wright) It is the Defence Requirements
Review process. It starts with your level of ambition, an assessment
of the scenarios which NATO may have to fight, an assessment of
the forces required to undertake that level of ambition, an allocation
in dialogue with nations of Force Goals, an acceptance by nations
of those Force Goals, and then, with the DPQ, the Defence Planning
Questionnaire, every year we assess how that has moved forward.
There is quite tough peer pressure in committees like this. Budgets
difficulties and all the rest of it over the last few years have
resulted in DCI [1]and
it has not been wholly successful, but there is a very coherent
structure all the way through NATO to produce results and ,now
PCC [2]The
bottom line has always been, I suspect, budgets. There is a fire
planning system. It is being revitalised and modernised at the
moment to reduce bureaucracy, and a very important thing that
NATO has started now is to go back over what I call legacy capabilities,
legacy capability packages that were geared some years ago to
the Cold War scenarios, and we are trying to remove them so that
we can look ahead to what we need as opposed to implementing old
concepts.
29. I presume preparatory work has been done
on the new members.
(Air Marshal Wright) Indeed, through the Membership
Action Plan.
30. When we went to Bulgaria, they were very
keen to show us their significant contribution of a marvellous
contraption which produces hot showers. I understand that it was
extremely welcome out in Afghanistan—not to be underestimated
as a contribution.
(Mr Hoon) Exactly. That is a very good example of
the kinds of things we are talking about. It is something that
was enormously welcome and enormously useful, and not something
that was at the high end of the technological spectrum.
Mr Crausby
31. Still on capability shortfall, and accepting
that every nation cannot deliver everything, nor perhaps should
they, can you tell us which areas of capability shortfall are
the most serious and the most difficult to fill?
(Mr Hoon) I think we have touched on a number of them
already, and we have debated strategic heavy lift both this time
and previously. This is part of the answer to the point about
what would you do if you lacked this requirement. Countries do
have lift, but they do not have lift of the size and shape required
in the modern world to move forces quickly. You can charter ships,
you can charter aircraft, but it takes time and it is not always
reliable. What I would invite you to think about is not just whether
that capability is there, whether you have a C-17 sitting there
on a runway. That is the ideal arrangement but you have also got
to ask "How quickly do we need those forces into this situation?
Do we need them tomorrow, next week, or will next year be enough?"
There is a matrix there of capabilities and time lines. It is
about understanding that matrix and about having the readiness
of your forces and the equipment that they need at the right time.
So heavy lift is part of it, secure communications, suppression
of enemy air defence. I could go on. There are a range of important
capabilities that we lack, but again, often that we lack in sufficient
number and of sufficient quality to interact in particular with
the United States, or that we lack in terms of timescale, having
them available in a reasonable time frame to do a particular job.
It is not quite as simple as saying there is a list and we tick
them off when they are available. It is about making sure that
they are available in certain timescales.
32. You said in your opening statement that
what is good for NATO is good for the European Union. That is
obviously true. Inevitably, there will be tensions between the
sovereign states. What role does the UK have to play as a bridge
between the United States and Europe; for instance, the European
commitment to achieve precision guided missiles alongside America's
prohibition to export what they consider to be the more sophisticated
armaments? What can the UK do to ease that tension?
(Mr Hoon) The UK has consistently put its emphasis
on developing more effective military capabilities, which is why
I say that the European defence process, the Prague commitments
and even the DCI before that were entirely complementary. They
were all designed to improve military capabilities. However, as
one goes about achieving that, if at the end of the day, European
nations have more and more effective military capabilities, I
am entirely relaxed about how that is achieved. One reason why
the UK supported the idea of European defence is that if we believed,
as we did, that the political pressure within the European Union
could bring about an improvement in military capability that hitherto
had not been successful elsewhere, we were pragmatic about employing
that means as a way of improving capability. I do not think that
there is any incoherence in that nor any difficulty between, say,
NATO and the European Union if one focuses on the goal of improving
military capability.
33. I have a specific question on ASTOR, which
is due to enter service in 2005. Lord Robertson identified two
ground surveillance capability gaps. That is coming in in 2005.
What is the Secretary-General saying is not provided by ASTOR?
(Mr Hoon) We are ahead of the game in providing a
national contribution to what is a NATO requirement. We are spending
around £1 billion on ASTOR at a time when NATO is still developing
and designing its own requirement. I do not know that "bridge"
is quite the right analogy, but as we are embedded in the NATO
process, our objective will be to ensure that the NATO design
requirement is consistent with what we are working on for ourselves.
Therefore, we shall be able to make a significant contribution
to the overall NATO picture. It will require more effort by other
NATO countries to emulate the efforts that we are making.
Syd Rapson
34. Would ASTOR be interoperable with other
nations, if we use our national facility for the benefit of all?
(Mr Hoon) That is what I was trying to say.
35. Will there be a problem with other countries
plugging into ASTOR?
(Mr Hoon) No. We are ahead of the game on this as
far as our partners are concerned. We have to ensure that, whatever
specification is developed in NATO, it is a specification that
works as far as we are concerned. I am reasonably confident that
we shall be able to do that simply because we are leading the
way. I have the Royal Air Force here who will be able to satisfy
you entirely, I am sure.
( Air Marshal Wright) Five nations are
working on their national AGS systems. They are all different.
Some use helicopters; they all use ground stations; and some use
jets, as we shall. NATO requires its own core-owned operated capability
to provide a minimum immediate response. That design is being
developed at the moment. In terms of interoperability NATO gets
its core capability by 2010, rather like the AWACS. The other
nations will contribute and the totality of that contribution
will give the overall requirement for the scenarios that I have
talked about. There is a programme called CAESAR and, like all
things in NATO, I cannot remember what the acronym stands for.
However, there is a NATO programme that ensures interoperability
so that, at the ground station, one can interpret pictures from
the different systems.
Chairman
36. It may be helpful if we have a briefing
on ASTOR. Maybe you could pull that into the briefing that we
were promised four years ago, but never received, about why the
company that did the contract actually won it. Perhaps we could
enter negotiations with the Secretary of State for that debriefing.
I am sure that by now your department has successfully debriefed
the unsuccessful applicants. If you have done that perhaps you
can tell us about the ASTOR programme. Obviously, it is very important.
(Mr Hoon) We can do that.
37. It was not on your watch, but a long time
before.
(Mr Hoon) I was doing the calculation.
Mr Howarth
38. "Watchkeeper" is on your watch.
(Mr Hoon) Yes, "Watchkeeper" is on my watch.
39. Secretary of State, mention has already
been made of the NATO Response Force, one of the key items that
came out of the Prague summit. I understand that its initial operational
capability is to be available by October 2004 with full operational
capability not later than October 2006. It is a 20,000-strong
force and it is designed to be ready to deploy at seven days'
notice. What kind of tasks is the Response Force designed for?
(Mr Hoon) The kinds of tasks that we would expect
our own spearhead forces to be engaged in: it is rapidly deployable;
perhaps engaged in medium-scale war fighting operations; perhaps
engaged in extraction operations, which are an increasingly regular
feature of what we ask people to do; and it will be very much
a sharp-end, war-fighting force should that prove necessary.
1 Defence Capabilities Initiative. Back
2
Prague Capabilities Commitment. Back
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