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Political-Military Doctrines
7.40 p.m.
Lord Kennet rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their view of the new political-military doctrines and new weapons systems which are being developed in the United States and being urged within NATO.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we now face two possible futures in world affairs: one which we have usually preferred, aimed, even if roughly, at international law and justice, democratically supported through international organisations; and another, now emerging, which would require the increasing use of scarce resources for warlike purposes; the abandonment of international and treaty law; pre-emptive attacks on states deemed unfriendly; and the weaponisation of space: all these under the hegemony of a United States that believes it has the right to police the world.
The second future is the work of the American techno-military bandwagon that lacks both the steering wheel of political thought and the brake of informed, democratic consent. These are harsh words and I shall attempt to justify them.
Who today are our enemies? It is not difficult to create enemies. Russia could become our enemy. We insisted on pulverising her dirigiste economy in two years flat, and now, although we informally undertook
not to expand NATO eastwards, we are planning to do just that. We appear ready to offer the nuclear guarantee to all the new NATO members from Finland round to Kazakhstan. That is encirclement.Add destabilisation budgets to help raise suspicion; let opaque intelligence remain misleading; rogue states--Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea--are those that are not pliable, and that is the truth of the matter. But their few proven acts of terrorism are not usefully met by multi-billion arms procurements. Israel also commits murders abroad, invades its neighbours and shows contempt for international law and opinion. It is not for that demonised. On the contrary, it is showered with military and other goodies.
This year the United States Secretary of Defense, William Perry, wrote in the introduction to his latest report on the US counterproliferation initiative that,
- "The United States seeks first to cap and then reduce and, eventually, eliminate, regional capabilities to produce nuclear, chemical, biological weapons and the missiles that deliver them ... Reducing this risk is an absolute priority of the United States".
He also threatened "disproportionate retribution" against Iraq if it rebuilt the legitimate defences which US Tomahawks destroyed last September.
Now, anything disproportionate in war is unlawful, so that was strong language from a Defense Secretary. But it is now being dramatically surpassed at the semi-official level. One text in this stronger form is an article by Dr. Harlan Ullman in the October issue of the journal of our own Royal United Services Institute. It gives an account of a book due shortly from the US National Defense University, put together by several recently retired US generals and admirals, together with Dr. Ullman and a retired Pentagon official.
Its central thesis is taken up in a lecture given by our own Commander-in-Chief Fleet at the same institute last month and due to be published in the journal's next issue. Both writers reject international law, considering preferable the pre-emptive use of force by the United States.
FCO and MoD Ministers--bless them!--in answer to the Written Questions, have distanced the Government from those views. Still, if our own Commander-in-Chief Fleet is tempted to flirt with them in the company of his colleagues and juniors, we must raise the alarm.
What are these ideas? Dr. Ullman introduces a concept he calls "Rapid Dominance" to be achieved through the application of shock and awe. He offers the services of his group,
- "in attempting to rise above bureaucratic and other constrictions in deriving a concept and doctrine for military power. Defence",
- "heavily regulated by government, remains ponderously slow in churning out new products".
- "world where force has the greatest relevance in achieving broader political and policy ends".
- "we believe this ability to impose massive (or selective) shock and awe, in essence to be able to 'turn the lights on and off' of an adversary as we choose, will so overload the perception, knowledge and understanding of that adversary that there will be no choice except to cease and desist or risk complete and total destruction".
Admiral Sir Peter Abbott, our C-in-C Fleet, after advocating "proactive measures" as opposed to "defence in its classic sense", and including "pre-emptive deterrence" and "retribution" concludes:
- "Above all, we must continue to encourage and support the USA in its efforts to police the world ... The Royal Navy has a pivotal role to play".
In parts of Washington, I fear that these views are no less than routine. They lurk behind the new US unilateralisms: starving the UN, the World Bank and the WHO of funds, and then accusing them of disobedience and inadequacy; claiming extra-territorial jurisdiction; breaching treaties; weaponising space; re-weaponising Bosnia; further weaponising the Middle East and the Far East and Afghanistan.
Here are the doctrinal and political corollaries of the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative to which I now turn, as I have turned before in this House. It is the continuation of President Reagan's star wars. That was designed to protect the American people from nuclear attack: the new capabilities could be used to subjugate the world. They all depend on the weaponisation of space, and they tend to be automatically triggered against automatically identified targets.
In their crazy variety these wished-for weapons remind one of what palaeontologists call the "Cambrian Explosion" of about 500 million years ago. After millions of millennia of boring single-cell organisms, life suddenly burst into a productive frenzy, creating bizarre species by the thousand. There were then about 100 phyla, compared with our 32 today. Most gave up the ghost before the arrival of the dinosaurs. If only a 20th of these new Cambrian weapons systems came to deployment, there would be little for humanity to do but sit and cower, shocked and awed.
There are, in this scheme of things, more than 100 types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under design. There is a burrowing munition (perhaps needing a small nuclear warhead), dispatched from a UAV, capable of entering a mountainside within which a chemical or biotechnology "facility" has been identified from space as suspect and going off only when it reaches the right chamber.
Seven boost phase intercept systems were being developed at one time. These would automatically shoot down any missiles their sensor/triggers in space deem ought to be shot down by directed energy or kinetic weapons within two or three minutes of their launch--or better, pre-emptively, before launch. The US President would of course be out of the loop, and allied governments even further out of it.
Here is the latest: last week the 5.5 billion dollar attack laser aircraft programme was announced by Boeing, which seems finally to breach the 1972 ABM Treaty: first, strike aircraft to attack pre-emptively, before the offending missiles leave the ground;
secondly, this new Boeing laser-bomber, to attack during the boost phase, within 80-140 seconds of launch; thirdly, the US Navy's exo-atmospheric anti-missile missile called Upper Tier; and fourthly, Patriot, or PAC-3, for last stage "point" defence. (That is the Patriot which did not shoot down any Scuds in the Gulf War.)Within the US industry, arms races are now run between firms--and branches of firms--and between branches of the US Armed Forces: decoys versus stealth versus sensors; ballistic missiles versus anti-missiles; manned aircraft versus unmanned aerial vehicles versus electronic and navigation warfare; everybody versus hackers.
My Lords, what is the Government's present position on all this? We know they have received two reports on the UK's own possible needs for ballistic missile defences--neither of which they intend to publish; and one on NATO's needs from the NATO senior proliferation group. In fact, they also have a fourth: that is Volume 2 of the inquiry into terrorism legislation by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. I shall not detain your Lordships with the relevance of that, but it is relevant.
Back to Washington: last spring, John Deutch, the rather new Director of the CIA, became aware of the extent to which the computers on which these weapons systems subsist are vulnerable both to the information warfare which is being developed in some parts of the Pentagon itself for use against others, and to the uncontrollable hackers out in the big world. He pointed out that the electron is the precision-guided weapon par excellence: it can be aimed directly,
- "at the command and brain structure of our military systems and our military forces";
nor does he rule out an "electronic Pearl Harbour". Instantly, President Clinton set up various bodies to look into all this. The military-industrial complex shuddered. Probably Mr. Deutch will not become the next US Secretary of Defense.
There is said to be some hurry in NATO; and "accelerated" decision meeting on BMD next month. The reason for this is not any ballistic missile threat, but that next year comes the mandatory quadrennial review of all US defence expenditures. The US industry would dearly like to be able to say, "The NATO allies really like this: they will buy lots and lots!" US allies in the Far East are also being drummed up to join in, and our Government should be discussing the situation with them.
What we should say to the US is this, "Wait a minute. We already buy vast quantities of weapons from you. You want us to pay 80 per cent. of your multi-billion dollar NATO enlargement--alongside our own EU enlargement costs. We will also have to pay when the Russians reactivate their responsive defence spending. And all the time we are filling in as best we can the gaps left by your gigantic debts to the United Nations and the world's poor. We simply don't go along with this one."
I cannot do better than end by suggesting that the Government--this one or the next--repeat to Mr. Clinton the words of his predecessor, the United States most experienced soldier--President Eisenhower:
- "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex",
- "in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite".
Today, all decent Americans, together with us in Britain, and in Europe, and our fellow human beings everywhere, are threatened quite precisely by the projects emerging from the military-industrial complex and the scientific-technological elite, and by the doctrines that seek to justify these projects. And so, my Lords, I ask my question, as on the Order Paper.
7.54 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, although there are no longer many noble Lords present, we should nevertheless be grateful to my noble friend Lord Kennet for tabling this Unstarred Question. My noble friend has raised a very important matter. He is acting like an early warning system. He has seen the early signs and, although what he has described may or may not happen, we should be aware.
During the past 50 years we have been subjected to all sorts of doctrines. The one that I remember most clearly was that of mutually assured destruction--the acronym being MAD. We have been subjected to fads and fashions and, unfortunately, the result has been large defence expenditure.
Before I make my main points, perhaps I should say that the path that the Government have followed with regard to defence expenditure has been very sound. We now spend less than 3 per cent. of our GDP on defence. I have welcomed that on previous occasions and do so now because of its soundness. The Government's White Papers have correctly positioned defence preparation in terms of their view of the dangers facing us. My noble friend points out dangers further ahead which are similar to the dangers that the Attlee Government faced when they were bounced into large defence expenditure which practically wrecked the Labour Party's economic programme 45 years ago.
So, what are the dangers? My noble friend dealt with the weapons systems dangers, about which he is very knowledgable. I have just one or two other comments to make.
There is currently a desperate search for enemies because once you set up a large defence establishment, if it does not face a threat it must invent something or dissolve itself. Interestingly, that reminds me of the Pentagon papers which came out 25 years ago. That policy was described in great detail in a US Department of Defense document. The US Department of Defense and the CIA always exaggerated the Soviet strength because that was the only way in which they could get larger budgets. That was a perfectly natural thing for them to do.
I am much more worried about the doctrine that is currently being put forward by Professor Huntingdon of Harvard and others which, in a sense, demonises Islam. I can see why that is an attractive doctrine. If one wants to create a doctrine of "the other", one can, having exhausted China and Russia, turn to Islam. Words like "fundamentalism" are bandied about to make that doctrine look attractive.
I hope, however, that Her Majesty's Government remember that they have friends of long standing in the Middle East. There has not been any long-standing enmity between Islam and ourselves for the past 500 years or so--and there is no need to create it. Although Islamic fundamentalism is being put up as the enemy of the United States and Western civilisation, I believe that the much greater danger is that Islamic fundamentalist forces are undermining states in the Middle East. They are the internal enemy. We should give much more careful consideration not to demonising Islamic fundamentalism but to understanding how the stability of states such as Egypt, Algeria and Iran can be preserved, admitting the strength of the Islamic religion while maintaining the coherence of civil society in this country.
I hope that we will think not only in terms of weapons. I agree with my noble friend that all of these fancy expensive schemes should be avoided, but we must also use a combination of the study of ideas and ideologies and diplomacy to ensure that we have a proactive policy to preserve peace. If we act now we shall avoid expenditure later. The money that will be saved is badly needed round the world for very many development problems. As my noble friend Lord Judd will say, there is a crying need around the world for more teachers and fewer soldiers. We must devise a policy that avoids fancy weapons and "demonising" and ensures that our defence is based on sound doctrines and an active diplomatic policy for peace.
8 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I start by declaring an interest in view of my professional work as Senior Fellow for Saferworld, an independent non-governmental and charitable think tank on international security matters. Having read Harlan Ullman's article and had the privilege of listening to my noble friend Lord Kennet, it is clear to me that at least in intellectual terms it is he who establishes rapid dominance and, with the force of his intellect and penetrating argument, fills all of us with shock and awe. As for lights going on and off, during his very illuminating interventions on these issues I always find that he does nothing but throw light upon and put into far healthier perspective many of the issues which preoccupy those who now have ministerial responsibility and those who will assume it next year.
Inevitably, there is always a battle for scarce resources available to the armed services. Calls for one capability or another are frequently coded language in the ongoing budgeting battle. It is therefore essential to examine these demands in a broader context. There is much talk about a revolution in military affairs, transforming the nature of warfare as we have known it. Arsenal ships replace aircraft carriers at a fraction of
the cost and personnel; unmanned aircraft make manned aircraft redundant; and there are mind-boggling developments in communications technology. It is a vision of ever more rapid, ever more automated and ever more apparently clean warfare.Politicians, no less than senior military officers with a lifetime of experience, can become preoccupied with old ways of doing things, for example believing that the tank will always be central to the Army because it has become so this century, or that manned aircraft will always be central to the Air Force, although in the professional lifetime of young officers entering the services today both may conceivably become as redundant as barrage balloons and horse-drawn artillery. It is essential to listen and to appraise new ideas, and to invest in them.
With the end of the Cold War, civil technology begins increasingly to outpace military technology. Therefore, there is a need to look more closely at exploiting civil advances to make the armed services both more effective and cost effective. I for one have never fully understood why civilian electronics and computers can improve so rapidly and cut costs so dramatically while the costs of military equipment rise inexorably.
If we are not to end up with only one aircraft, with cost escalation extrapolated, there is a need to think through whether or not more can be done to utilise technology that is being developed in the civil sector. At the same time, we should take very seriously the implications for the operational viability of the NATO Alliance if too great a gap develops between the level of technological sophistication of the United States and that of the other alliance members. It is right for the armed services to consider all the possibilities of new technology, but great care has to be taken not to regard this as a panacea. Decisions on military procurement and doctrine cannot be taken in a political vacuum. First, they have to relate to the task. That is why the comprehensive defence review to be undertaken by the new Labour government will be so important. Second, the skills, morale and professionalism of our military personnel will always be of fundamental importance.
I shall deal with each of these in turn. At times it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the technical sophistication of some of those who write and comment on military affairs is matched by an incredible political naivety. This is not true of most leading military people who, in my experience, understand very well the political significance of what they do. To take an important example, there is broad agreement that the spread of weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, chemical and biological--must be one of the central concerns of international security over the next decades. It is understandable that commentators focus on the military aspects of dealing with this challenge, deploying appropriate forces and being able to take necessary counter measures to deter a would-be aggressor from preparing to use weapons of mass destruction; in other words, deploying systems of precision targeting and convincing missile defence systems.
But in reality military solutions can at best play only a part, however vital, in responding to the situation. What is also essential is to concentrate on strengthening viable, enforceable arms control agreements which make it unacceptable to acquire or maintain these weapons and, at the same time, to deploy firm diplomacy in support of these agreements and in policing them. Priorities must be to draw more nations firmly into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and to exercise stricter export controls such as the Missile Technology Control Regime to stop the spread of ballistic missiles. The Chemical Weapons Convention is due to enter into force in April of next year. We should be urging both the US and Russia to ratify the treaty before then and do all that we can to persuade other countries which have not yet done so, especially in the Middle East, to sign it.
The Biological Toxin Weapons Convention is the subject of a review conference even as we debate tonight. Although this treaty has been in place since 1972, it has no teeth because it lacks a verification regime. It is to be hoped that the conference will work towards such a verification regime for the treaty as soon as practicable. As for export controls, the Scott Inquiry has made the urgent need to strengthen them abundantly clear. This is not just in the sphere of weapons of mass destruction. It is conventional weapons which are killing thousands today and doing untold economic, social and political damage. That is why the new Labour government will work to introduce, for example, a European code of conduct on arms sales--something which is clearly appropriate for Britain in the light of the grim revelations about our alleged involvement in what has been happening in Zaire.
On the nuclear front, there have already been encouraging developments. In the past five years several countries have been rolling back their nuclear programmes and voluntarily denuclearising. We have only to think of Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Ukraine. There has also been some progress in North Korea and Iraq, although this must be recognised as still reversible. What has been achieved so far has been based on international law and building up the standards of international behaviour. It has been founded on a deep sense of the unacceptability of these weapons--a sense which exists in the nuclear no less than the non-nuclear states. Many more states could acquire them but most have not.
The regrettable refusal of India as the world's largest democracy to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has demonstrated, however, that there is still widespread concern in states, which by no stretch of the imagination can be described as "rogue states", lest there is one law for the nuclear states and another for the others. This leads one to question why it is acceptable for Western allies like Israel to have nuclear weapons but not for others.
Any attitudes which can lead more nations to acquire nuclear weapons must be resisted. Proliferation is certainly the road to disaster. That is why a genuine, determined commitment to verifiable, multilateral nuclear disarmament must be central to our strategy. It
will take time and patience. There is no guarantee of success. But in the meantime the nuclear weapon states must make clear beyond doubt that the role of nuclear weapons is a very last resort to be utilised only in the most extreme circumstances.Careless talk of using American or British nuclear weapons as ultimate coercive power works directly against the restraint which is in our own interests. It can only encourage those who seek to justify proliferation if we allow--directly or by implication--the idea to gain ground that we see nuclear weapons as a legitimate instrument for power projection. We would have only ourselves to blame if others then themselves sought to acquire the means for combating such an instrument. If we want to convince others to give up nuclear weapons, or to forgo acquiring them, we must move beyond Cold War mindset and avoid drifting into an over-dependence on the role of nuclear weapons in our own military doctrine.
Having said all that, we must be realists. We live in an imperfect world and, therefore, before I conclude, perhaps I should say a little more on missile defences. There is, I detect, a tendency to say that if ballistic missile defences are feasible then they must be desirable. But--quite apart from the astronomical cost and consequent penalties in other areas of defence expenditure--the analysis is just not that simple. For instance, such defences might relatively easily be overcome by the use of submunitions and decoys. BMD might simply provide further impetus for others to explore alternative means of delivery--like aircraft, cruise missiles, mini-submarines and special forces or--to use the word paradoxically--unconventional means of delivery. BMD will not be able to prevent a device carried in the back of a lorry or in a suitcase, nor to counter a biological warfare agent being released into the water system or sprayed from a light aircraft. We have to face the prospect that ballistic missiles may not be the optimum means of delivery for a rogue state.
We have also to consider the impact of the deployment of BMD on the policies of Russia, China and others. Is there a danger that the deployment of highly capable theatre missile defences might strengthen the position of any aspiring leaders in Russia who wanted to scrap the START II Treaty, expand Russia's nuclear arsenal once again, and become more reliant on a launch on warning policy? None of those consequences would be in our security interest.
Theatre missile defence--like that provided by the US Patriot missile--will continue to have a role to play when we are confronted with an adversary armed with ballistic missiles. But we must place this type of threat in perspective, appreciate the limits of what can be achieved, and understand that the consequences of widespread BMD deployment may counter-productively provoke reactions that are contrary to our true security. That is why before going too far down that road it will be prudent for NATO to assess all the implications very carefully indeed.
With all the talk of technical fixes we would be unwise to forget that the Gulf War involved far more iron bombs than precision guided munitions and that,
despite all the technology, and despite unchallenged air supremacy, it proved extremely difficult to locate a few Scud missiles located in the desert. Some of the greatest successes in that regard were by special forces operating in a very old-fashioned way. We had to have armies on the ground to defeat Iraq. We know that the MoD has a review in hand on what should be British policy towards BMD, and that Professor Brown has been its academic consultant. It would be good to hear from the Minister this evening how that review is progressing.The more we consider the issues raised by BMD, the clearer it becomes that verifiable, comprehensive, multilateral disarmament really must be a relentless, hard-headed and disciplined commitment in our security policy and never, never a woolly wet appendix to our endeavours.
But, above all, we must remember that the tasks in which our armed services have found themselves involved most often since 1990 have not been high-tech wars but a series of missions in which different ranges of skills and capabilities have been at a premium. We are--and must never overlook the fact--one of only five Permanent Members of the Security Council of the United Nations, and the UN has more than 180 members. None of us would advocate giving up our special place. It follows that we are opting for a lead role in world stewardship.
We cannot dip in and out of that role. The crisis in the Great Lakes region of Africa is the latest test. This means that, in a highly interdependent world community in terms of economics, finance, trade, resources, environment, climate, migration, terrorism and the rest, we have all the time to ask ourselves how far our armed services are geared to this responsibility for global stewardship. I have not a shred of doubt that the greatest test of political leadership in the years ahead will be the contribution we make to finding the co-operative global solutions to the immense challenges that face us all, not one of which can be answered within the context of the nation state alone. An effective contribution to collective security is crucial in this respect. Inevitably we shall have to spend considerable amounts on research and development for our defence systems, on securing new weapons, on investing to save. But we must have balance and perspective. Well-trained and highly motivated personnel will always be every bit as important as the latest gizmo.
8.16 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for raising the subject for this debate, and to noble Lords opposite for their erudite and informed contributions. I shall, in the next few minutes, endeavour to answer as many as possible of the points which have been made. I shall be happy to write to noble Lords with answers to any questions that I do not manage to address.
The Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, seeks Her Majesty's Government's views on the new political and military doctrines and weapons systems being developed in the United States. In a world where unpredictability is rife and technology advances at an
ever-more rapid pace, it is hardly surprising, as I am sure the noble Lord himself will appreciate, that such speculation is commonplace.With a US defence budget in excess of 275 billion dollars per year, decisions on the future direction of defence can create or destroy whole industries. In such circumstances it is only natural that many bodies, both within government and outside, are engaged in developing potential concepts for dealing with an uncertain future, and identifying potential technologies to carry them out. It is equally natural that the visions they create vary from the fantastical to the prosaic. What matters, however, is that they contribute to a debate which will help inform decision making. In that context Her Majesty's Government follow that debate with a keen interest, although we do not believe that it is necessary or helpful to comment upon each and every unofficial idea put forward.
Nevertheless, one such "think-piece" currently clamouring for the attention of decision makers in Washington, to which the noble Lord referred, is the article by Dr. Harlan Ullman on the subject of rapid dominance. Dr. Ullman is not, of course, a spokesman for the US government. Indeed, I understand that, in conjunction with a number of retired senior officers and officials he has produced this work with a view to publication under the auspices of the National Defense University, in Washington DC. As I have indicated, I do not believe it would be appropriate for Her Majesty's Government to take a formal position on every such academic article.
I have read this particular piece and, if it is of use to the noble Lord, I would offer the observation that much of Dr. Ullman's underlying analysis appears uncontentious: the future will see shrinking defence budgets; research and development cycles for new equipment will still be long; the security environment in which we will find ourselves will be different from that to which we are accustomed.
He categorises some of the factors which make up military effectiveness: speed, deterrance, communications, training, intelligence, and force superiority. Those factors would be recognised by most operators in this field worldwide.
What Dr. Ullman deduces from that is that a force with overwhelming capabilities, capable of rapid deployment anywhere in the world, might so intimidate a potential opponent as to make its actual deployment unnecessary, but Dr. Ullman himself recognises that turning "rapid dominance" into a doctrine would be to attempt to
- "reach what may prove to be beyond the limits of our grasp",
We should beware of giving these ideas more substance than they merit.
When it comes to matters being urged within NATO, the situation is somewhat different. We welcome constructive contributions to the question of how NATO should adapt its structures, doctrines or capabilities to allow it to face the challenges of the next century. Adaptation of the alliance to the post Cold War security
environment has been an important issue for the UK and our NATO allies since the Alliance Strategic Concept was agreed in 1991. It was a key feature of the summit in 1994 and it has been a focus of attention at subsequent ministerial meetings.
We welcome the contributions to that debate, whatever their origins, but we approach them on a case-by-case basis in the context of our own views on the issues addressed. NATO is an alliance of 16 sovereign nations. While the views of the United States are extremely important as a vital transatlantic ally, it is quite wrong to suggest, as I thought the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, tended to do, that the alliance is merely an adjunct of US foreign policy.
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