| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
NATO: Eastward Expansion
3.51 p.m.
Lord Kennet rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy on the proposal that NATO should expand eastwards.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am glad that there are so many speakers and I am very sorry that our rules do not prove flexible enough to allow them to speak for more than five minutes.
There are two sides to this question: how we see it and how Russia sees it. Russia first. The Poles, Czechs and Hungarians want to join both the EU and NATO. Only last week President Yeltsin reaffirmed Russia's "sharply negative" attitude to their joining NATO. Is this the best kind of security we can give to the Poles, one that ensures Russia's enmity?
The United States argues that NATO expansion is not against Russia's interests. But that is not for us to say. Russia's interests are defined in and by Russia, not by us. That is what national sovereignty is about.
Poland and the others are part of the family of European nations. So is Russia. Poland and half-a-dozen others want expansion because they are afraid of one nation, Russia. But Russia opposes it because it is afraid of 15 nations already and would be more afraid of 20.
Has Russia the right to be more afraid than Poland? Poland has suffered more wrong from Russia this century than Russia from Poland. But already Russia is one versus 15, and that 15 includes the militarily most powerful nation in the world. Russia is also half-sunk in economic chaos, military impotence and political debility, largely because of the West's thoughtless insistence on immediate free markets in everything.
Nothing Mrs. Albright or Mr. Solana can say will persuade the Russians that two plus two makes three. The Russians are not imposing a veto on them making three; they just do not do so.
History is not bunk. We know perfectly well that there are potential Stalins, if not Hitlers, among the contenders for the succession to the ailing Yeltsin. Both the Duma and the Federal Council now have "anti-NATO" groups. The Russians are willing to talk to us about NATO expansion. But we should make no mistake here: this is not the willingness of an equal; it is the willingness of a hopelessly inferior negotiator to grasp at any straw of forbearance.
I think it is dreadful to realise the deafness of official Washington to these facts, which are obvious to all of us in Europe and to sensible people in the US too. We can bait the bear in his pit, but in the end he will rise up and bite us, or it will cost us all the ambulances of the UN and OSCE 10 times over to restore him to health. Europe will suffer first.
Mr. Rifkind worries about the new line drawn across Europe. But there is a line now. Limited expansion would move it east. Applicant-wide expansion would move it further east. Which is its most dangerous position? I submit it is that which comes closest to encircling Russia.
Ukraine is being hailed by Mrs. Albright as the United States' "strategic partner", and vast US funding--the third highest after Israel and Egypt--is going there. Russia calls all this destructive and provocative. Ukraine too opposes NATO expansion. And beyond, where the Secretary General of NATO makes his repeated swings, promising NATO science and NATO environmental protection, the distant voices of Kazakhstan and Kyrghizia urge the US not to be in such a dangerous hurry.
Now, our side of the matter. Mr. Rifkind has written that Russia's relationship with NATO is as important to peace in Europe as NATO's enlargement. Right. This much can be agreed by everyone and fits every sensible statement from all three parties here. But NATO enlargement is not free-standing. I remain astonished at the Government's continued claim that it might be. The future of Europe and of the whole international arms control system is involved, and that is not NATO's responsibility.
US insistence on expansion means Russia will keep open the option to re-arm, and this puts at risk most of the arms control agreements of the past 30 years: SALT, START, INF, CFE, CTB, probably the Non-Proliferation Treaty; also the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty on the continuation of which the credibility of Britain's Trident force depends.
The political ructions following even minimum enlargement would be legion. The Baltic states would be angry and frightened at their exclusion. The Romanians have only agreed to settle their dispute with Hungary because they thought it would get them into NATO. If they are excluded, will it hold?
Does Mrs. Albright's sudden notion of a NATO-Russia Council fit the bill, given that the Americans do not want a binding charter and the Russians do not want a non-binding one? It could only be a channel of military communication between the 18 nations of an expanded NATO, on the one hand, and the single nation of Russia, on the other--a permanent expression of tension and resentment. It would be the seventh wheel to the coach, and a square one at that.
With several highly sensitive European states outside it, it would not be an organ of pan-European security. In any case, we already have the OSCE, which includes all the countries of Europe, plus the United States and Canada, and has the relevant remit. Its authority should have been reinforced last December to deal with the present unnecessary crisis. Why was it not?
NATO expansion involves the remilitarisation of Europe. Look at the proposals the various arms manufacturers are making to possible new members--5 million dollar deals here; 1 billion dollars there. The United States has also, outside NATO, been developing bilateral military relations with governments as various
as those of the Ukraine, Hungary, Moslem Bosnia and Albania. "That is no concern of ours", say the Government. Why not?Expansion would affect all our economic futures because this remilitarisation would be going on at the same time as we start admitting the same countries to the European Union. The cost estimates for NATO expansion are now numerous and contradictory. They are mostly far too low to command confidence. The Washington Post calls the latest official figures of the United States "enlargement on the cheap". These last do not cover new weapons at all, but they do double the NATO bureaucracy. Above all, they do not include the costs of our new military build-up against the new Russian build-up which we must confidently expect if we do it. There is value for money!
NATO expansion would also affect the viability of political Europe. It would not be the "new", more European, less military, NATO we were once promised. It would still be a US-led military organisation, as always. During the Cold War, this leadership was a military necessity and the democratic deficit was unavoidable--now, no longer.
I turn lastly to the question of commitments. Last November I inquired after the verbal commitment not to expand NATO made by Mr. Major as Foreign Secretary and Mr. Baker as his American opposite number. The Russians allege this verbal commitment, and HMG tacitly admit it. Does the Foreign Secretary's word no longer commit us?
There has of course been the electioneering commitment given by President Clinton, without any consultation with his allies, to central European ethnic groups. This cannot bind any other government and we are as much free agents in this matter now as we were two years ago.
Has any European Parliament approved NATO expansion? The Foreign Office does not even know whether any have so much as discussed it. Expansion has had a shamefully brief airing in both Houses of our own Parliament. I have asked quite a lot of questions. But, to put it mildly, there is no consensus that this should be done: by no means is it a "done deed" if democracy means anything. Perhaps the Minister will tell us why Parliament's opinion has not been sought.
Usually any suggestion in this House that the United States may be less than perfect is greeted on the government side with the primmest of pursed lips. But now that a Cabinet Minister has expressed his determination to stand firm against "American imperialism" at a semi-public meeting, I feel released from the customary inhibited dictions. The development of a "Clinton and Albright are always right" culture in this country would be no kindness either to us or to them.
Look: the walls have been down six years now, and the flowers should be out. Why should we want to continue an anachronistic transatlantic military leadership? We should want the right of political equality for sovereign states under the law, unless and until conscious and democratic actions are taken to merge sovereignties.
4.2 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, with the end of the Cold War, it was assumed that the Soviet threat had gone away. The Visegrad countries do not share that view: they feel vulnerable to a Russia which both for nationalist reasons and for economic self-interest would like still to dominate them. They know, as NATO does, that the Russians are thinking strategically. They are building nuclear submarines and weapons and new fighter aircraft with the added incentive that Russia is rapidly increasing its claim of arms sales in the world market (ll per cent. in 1996) and has no inhibitions about proliferation.
The Russians still maintain, despite much publicised troubles over money elsewhere in the army, their strategic missile forces at a high level. Indeed, General Rodionov, the Defence Minister, actually referred to NATO intelligence reports which say, he says, that although the general purpose forces of the Russian army do not present a danger, its strategic nuclear forces are at full combat readiness. It is too soon, therefore, to write off the need to deter a possible Russian threat and it will not do to throw the Visegrad countries back into their only-too-willing arms.
Russia knows that the Visegrad countries are not seeking allies in an offensive war but insurance against threats, actual or subliminal. So what are Russia's objectives? We need to remember that Russian military doctrine, as defined by General Lobov, the arms control specialist, advocates reflexive control (the art of manipulating the actions of an opponent), military cunning and maskirovka. Thus, they will try to prevent enlargement in several ways: first, by playing on our fears and by claiming that we shall, if we go ahead, destabilise Russia. Primakov told Chatham House recently that,
- "if agreement could be reached to freeze all new admissions, then it will be possible to speed up democratic reforms in Russia".
Next, they are bargaining, arguing that enlargement requires revision of the CFE Treaty (already agreed in principle) and START 2 (still not ratified by Russia) and a new package for START 3.
Next, in any treaty with NATO they will argue for a veto and make stipulations on the enlargement process. Primakov said on 7th March that any documents regulating Russian-NATO relations must provide the guarantee that NATO will not extend its military infrastructure (a very broad term) into the territory of new members. I hope that NATO will firmly retain its right to deploy, although it will obviously exercise it with great restraint. Russia, on the other hand, has established military bases in every CIS country, including a reluctant Georgia. Russia is not exactly alone.
All those activities are a mixture of shadow-boxing and hard bargaining. What is more disturbing is the Russian strategy to neutralise NATO itself and, above all, its Atlantic dimension. Until recently the tactic was to advance the claims of the OSCE, that toothless and amorphous organisation, to replace NATO as,
- "the only collective security system free from demarcation lines".
But now we have the Russian honeymoon with the European Union. On the agenda of Jacques Santer and Wim Kok on a visit to Moscow on 3rd March to discuss the economic agreement with Russia were European security and NATO enlargement to the east and security and stability in Europe. Both the Germans and the French have been strongly advocating a defence role for the EU which would embrace the Western European Union. That would suit Russia well. It would precipitate a US withdrawal from Europe, and that would be the end of NATO and, I submit, the beginning perhaps of a new German-Russian axis. The Visegrad countries fear that too. We cannot afford not to enlarge, although I well recognise that it will be extremely difficult.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for introducing this important subject for a brief exchange of views today. This debate has been going on in the United States, in Russia and in eastern Europe for a long time and at a profound level. But there has been very little discussion of it in western Europe. Perhaps it is characteristic that we should be having this debate on a Friday afternoon in a House of Lords that can scarcely be said to be bursting at the seams; yet this is one of the most important and strategic issues facing our country, its allies and partners at the moment. Together with the debate about the future political structure of the European Union, it will settle our security and stability for many years to come. It needs careful, profound and calm analysis of where our interests lie.
The first thing to be said is that there must be no Russian veto on the enlargement of NATO. We sometimes forget--and perhaps need reminding--that we won the Cold War. We should not be ashamed to say so--not in any sense of triumphalism, but as a matter of fact. In the light of the noble Lord's somewhat sad phobia about the United States of America, we should perhaps remember that we won against the Soviet Union under the leadership of the US. One of the reasons we fought the Cold War for many years at great cost was that in eastern Europe there were captive nations whose freedoms had been totally removed by the hegemony of the Soviet communist empire. Now that those states have been freed by NATO, do they not have the right to choose where their future security lies? If they choose as their security structure the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation why should they not apply to join it? Do we have any moral right to refuse them admission to the club?
We must also ask ourselves not only what benefits the countries of eastern Europe but where our interests lie. In a report submitted to the US Congress as part of the Fiscal Year 1997 Defense Authorization Act it was suggested that the reason for the enlargement of NATO was that it would provide a stronger collective defence for the West, that it would improve burden sharing in NATO and that it would foster democracy in eastern European countries. We must test those arguments. We must not accept them but we must not reject them out of hand. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said, there
will be costs. No one denies that. The enlargement of NATO will not be a free lunch. We shall all have to pay a little towards it. These are important matters for the security of this country and the security of our allies and they must not be vetoed by the Soviet Union--that was a Freudian slip; I mean by Russia or anyone else.I come now to the second part of the question which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, perhaps significantly, took first. I agree with the noble Lord and with most people who have seriously studied the problem that the need for security arrangements in Europe and the whole process of the enlargement of NATO, if it takes place, must take full account of the concerns of the Russians. There will be no long-term stability or security in Europe without the collaboration and good will of the Russians. In Russia there are real concerns. Recently, I had an opportunity to discuss the problem of enlargement with a group of senior Russian generals. It is true that they have serious concerns. It is not just political posturings. These are the concerns of experienced military officers. Some may say that they are the perceptions of a defeated and demoralised nation. However, as anyone who has ever had anything to do with strategic matters will know, perceptions are as important as realities. They certainly are in this case.
Of course, there are many difficulties in the way of enlargement. It raises complicated issues which we do not have time to go into today. But this must not become another hawk-dove argument or an argument between cold warriors and peacemakers; it must not become a situation in which the Russians are regarded as the reformed characters of Europe and the United States as the great Satan. There are important political, strategic issues to be analysed, and those issues involve the national and collective security of this country and its allies well into the next century.
We must not rush to enlarge but we must not be frightened of doing so. From what I have heard I believe that the Government and their military advisers fully understand the problems and are dealing with them sensibly and calmly. I hope that when the Minister comes to reply he can reassure the House that at the NATO summit meeting in Madrid in July Her Majesty's Government will use their still very considerable influence to ensure that NATO is neither intimidated by pressures from outside the alliance nor stampeded into premature action by pressures from within.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page