Ukraine Update

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a really important point and one that has registered with many people, not least Governments. It is somewhat wide of my area of departmental responsibility, but I hear what she says and will reflect that back to the department.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, many serious analysts expected Kyiv to be taken via Belarus within two days or so. Clearly President Putin did not factor in the remarkable resistance of the people of Ukraine and their morale, in spite of the imbalance of forces. Quite rightly, we have decided to give sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine, but that surely needs very good training. Where will this training be done—outside the borders of Ukraine?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I can confirm the first part of the noble Lord’s question: yes, there will be a degree of training required. He will understand that, for reasons of operational discretion, I am not going to be more explicit about that.

Ukraine

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I join with the noble Lord, Lord King, and the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, in his admirable maiden speech, in calling for a global response.

We are in dark days, the like of which we thought we would not see again in our time. My theme is simple: the current invasion was predictable—indeed, it was predicted—and much of it depended on the gullibility of the western response. So far as the predictability is concerned, much of that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. On the Russian domestic side, I just mention Magnitsky, Navalny and the blows to the freedom of the press. Abroad, we of course had Skripal in Salisbury and the invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. It was predicted. Indeed, looking back, historians will see the triumph in particular of US intelligence in predicting what would happen: the incremental deceit, step by step leading to the actual invasion.

Then we have the question of the nature of President Putin—once a member of the KGB, always a member of the KGB. I was in the foreign service in the 1960s and I recall that there was no Soviet speech possible without talking about revanchist West Germany and about the encirclement of the Soviet Union. Putin mentioned Nazis in respect of Ukraine, which was an echo of the 1960s. Of course, he had the humiliation of Yeltsin and Gorbachev, and Monday’s speech spoke volumes of his nature. Where will it end? Putin has not actually declared his war aims. The minimalist aim is surely the water supply of Crimea and the Mariupol corridor; the maximum is the restructuring of the whole of the security architecture of Europe according to his will.

All this has been aided by the West, which has given Putin the benefit of every doubt. President Macron talked about being deceived—surprise, surprise. To turn the spotlight on the UK, we have allowed so much Russian gold to come in; I congratulate Mr Tugendhat on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place. Let us look also at our overseas territories, which are a gap that has not yet been filled. Yet Russia is relatively weak. On analysis, I do not accept what some Americans tell me about Russia being only “a gas station with nukes”; it has a powerful military but, overall, it is still relatively weak and we should appreciate that. Will it be able to sustain a lengthy occupation of Ukraine?

What should be the response? Yes, sanctions could make Putin pay a price. There has been approval of the brave decision of Germany in respect of Nord Stream 2. The Ukrainian people have responded well thus far. I was at a conference in Odessa two months ago as the only UK parliamentarian and was most impressed by the morale of the people. There will be much greater resistance than Putin so far assumes.

I ask the Minister, if I may, about China. China will presumably veto any United Nations Security Council resolution. Is it likely that Russia will now become increasingly dependent on China? What has been the Chinese response, in spite of the Chinese line of “no interference in internal affairs”?

Obviously the West must underline our own red lines, as my noble friend Lord West said. What are the consequences? We must be honest: we must be ready to pay a price ourselves. We must look to make Russia a pariah. I mention the Council of Europe: Putin is not going to lose any sleep over it, but how absurd it is that Russia is allowed to remain a member of what is the key human rights organisation in Europe. NATO must give a united response. One unintended consequence of Putin’s advance and invasion is surely this: there will be a united NATO, which will respond as such, and it may be that Sweden and Finland will look at their own interests and decide that they too must become members of the alliance.

British Armed Forces: Global Britain

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, global Britain will only progress in alliance with our key allies, be it the US, France and so on. Of course, I welcome the increased funding and the four-year settlement, but hard choices remain. We have to ask ourselves whether we, as a middle-sized country, can do everything across the spectrum with excellence, as the Defence Secretary claims. Can we be everywhere, in all the theatres, as the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, implies? I reflect that the increase in funding and presence worldwide took place at a time when we were a member of the European Union. Nevertheless, we took important and sovereign decisions. Was EU membership in any way a constraint on our defence posture in terms of procurement or deployment?

D-day Landings Memorial: Education

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

Congratulations are due, but does the Minister agree that, apart from our dwindling band of veterans and their families, a major target group of visitors must be local people in Normandy, particularly French schoolchildren? Will she therefore ensure that all the material is bilingual and uses, so far as is possible, memories of those who were there at the time? Having been a student working on a farm on the plain of Caen, I know that there is tremendous enthusiasm for the role which we in Britain played in the liberation of Normandy.

[Baroness Goldie]

The noble Lord makes an important point. It will of course be for the trustees to determine how they administer and run the education centre, but I am sure that they will pay close attention to his observations.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no doubt either that our leaving the European Union will have profound effects across the board, particularly on our external relations, or that these effects will be felt for several decades to come.

I concede, of course, that the scale of these effects will depend in part on the coming negotiations, for example on the proposed free trade area with the European Union. Will this cover services so vital to us? Will any alignment of our trade policies with the European Union limit, or even block, other likely trade deals? Is the WTO really a valid alternative option, given its enfeeblement following the US refusal to appoint judges for dispute resolution panels, a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay?

Obviously, many of the advantages we enjoy in foreign affairs will remain post Brexit, such as our membership of a range of international organisations. Equally, our hard power assets will remain, but the current strength of our Army at 74,000 means that we cannot be everywhere militarily and must surely re-examine our commitments. Our record on soft power is far more impressive. Since its inception in 2015, we have been either first or second in the Portland soft power index. The English language is a major asset for us; as is our vital British Council, which is not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech.

I welcome the long overdue review of all our external departments. I join my noble friend Lord Collins, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in raising questions about the danger of DfID returning to the fold of the FCO. Will HMG be giving evidence—as I assume they will—to the review, and will that evidence actually call for a reintegration of DfID into the FCO?

The decision to implement the Truro recommendations on promoting religious freedom overseas is to be applauded. Does this cover all the recommendations? For example, will all relevant external departments adjust their training policies at all levels, from new entrants to ambassadors? How can we influence the EU to follow our example if we are no longer members? I mention in passing that, many years ago, I went to visit an ambassador who I knew fairly well to press him on the human rights of a religious dissident who was imprisoned. He said rather loftily to me, “Well, human rights is the job of my First Secretary. Why don’t you have a word with him?” That would not be said nowadays, and I welcome the sea change in FCO practices.

The commitment that, once we leave the EU, we shall promote sanctions for human rights abuses worldwide and build on “existing Magnitsky-style measures” is somewhat puzzling to me. In what way are we constrained now from establishing visa bans and asset freezes? Can the Government say how many individuals have been sanctioned by us since the passage of the Magnitsky amendments to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act? Far from the Government eagerly taking the lead in this respect, I recall that these amendments were forced on a reluctant Government by an all-party coalition led by Andrew Mitchell, Conservative, Margaret Hodge, Labour, and Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat.

Brexit will lead to major changes. Generations of our diplomats have become accustomed instinctively to co-ordinating policy with our EU partners. When we become, at best, decision-takers, EU policy will surely change and, for example, become much softer on Putin’s Russia. On trade, it is claimed that with one bound we shall be free to strike deals with third countries, but there are problems. Our bargaining power will be diminished. The pattern of trade has changed, and, as the FT showed in a recent article, Canada’s experience of CETA shows some of the problems. Our current exports to India and China are not encouraging; we export roughly the same as France to both markets, but to China less than a quarter of the exports of Germany and to India less than half of Germany’s exports, in spite of our vibrant Indian diaspora.

We have a choice between the EU and the US. Our position on most global challenges is closer to that of the EU, as is well illustrated by the recent assassination of General Soleimani. Our interests, military and civilian, are very involved, but the special relationship did not mean that we were consulted. How can the choice on different issues between the US and the EU still be available when we leave the EU? In particular, with the impulsiveness of President Trump, is there not a danger of our being drawn inexorably into the US orbit?

Syria: British Armed Forces

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

I should say to the noble and gallant Lord that the United Kingdom enjoys a very good relationship with the Republic of Cyprus, which includes a cordial relationship as regards our sovereign base areas. Of course, our sovereign base areas have been critical to our capability to endeavour to take action against Daesh in Syria.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not clear that, as a result of President Trump’s decision, we are witnessing a major geopolitical shift in the region in favour of Russia? What protocols or understandings are there with Russia to ensure that there is no clash between Russian planes and our own?

[Baroness Goldie]

I can reassure the noble Lord that we have set procedures for handling the airspace above Syria. He is right that, given the number of parties operating over Syria now, the airspace is congested, but that is no different from the conditions during earlier counter-Daesh operations. There are procedures to ensure that air activity is appropriately deconflicted and handled in a safe and professional manner. Those are the rules by which the United Kingdom abides, as do our allies.

D-day: 75th Anniversary

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Earl, who put the Normandy landings so well in context. It is right today to mark the D-day landings and right to pay tribute to the meticulous planning of General Morgan and his team, based on Lord Mountbatten’s earlier planning. It was quite a feat—apart from the soldiers, the land forces—to organise 12,000 aircraft and 7,700 ships in the greatest amphibious operation of all time. It is right to recognise the success of the measures of deception and the work of Bletchley Park. Above all, it is right to salute the bravery of our air, sea and land forces. We should remember the sacrifice of so many lives, which will be commemorated in that memorial to be unveiled on Thursday at Ver-sur-Mer. With hindsight, of course, we can see hesitations, blunders and miscalculations, as shown by Antony Beevor in his perceptive Sunday Times article—but this happens in any military operation. Overall, the longest day was a total success; some say now that the victory was inevitable, but that is with the benefit of hindsight with 20/20 vision.

Paris was, of course, liberated by August. Casualties were severe on all sides. We should remember that 20,000 French civilians died in the fighting. They suffered then, and many also suffered as so much of the infrastructure was destroyed, such as the Seine and Loire bridges. The SS Division Das Reich came from the Mediterranean and up through France, wreaking havoc on so many French civilians, such as those in the Martyr village at Oradour-sur-Glane, the village of Dunes, and others. They left a trail of destruction en route to Normandy. There was so much destruction of towns—Caen, Saint-Lo, Falaise and Villers-Bocage. The terrain, the Bocage landscape, the Normandy farmhouses, the hedgerows and the ditches were ideal for defence. Above all, it was, as the noble Earl has said, an allied victory. Nine countries provided ships and nine provided aircrew, apart, of course, from the land forces. Perhaps President Trump should be reminded of this triumph of multi-nationalism when he visits Omaha beach and sees that magnificent US memorial at the cemetery there.

At the risk of appearing self-indulgent, I have two personal memories to recall. In 1957, after sixth form, I worked for three weeks on a farm near Caen. Everywhere, there were still memories of the war, particularly the cemeteries, maintained so well by our War Graves Commission. I recall that in my village, the annual fete was preceded by a parade to the local British cemetery, where more than 200 men were buried. What struck me as a 17 year-old was that many of the men who died were roughly the same age as myself, perhaps a year or two older. I was proud to be invited by a group of villagers to head the procession with the French veterans, with their berets and medals. In spite of the deaths and enormous destruction in that part of Normandy, what was clear to me was that there was nothing but immense gratitude and good will among the people for the contribution of our British forces to the liberation of France.

Fast forward 50 years. I was taking a school party from my native Swansea around Parliament. Present was the head of the West Wales branch of the Normandy Veterans’ Association, Doug Gausden. When he saw in the Royal Gallery the memorial to Dunkirk, he remarked, “What about us Normandy boys?” I promised to do my best to remedy the omission. A year or so later, with the help of the then Black Rod, whose father-in-law I think took part in the landings, we had a ceremony with a piper to mark the gift from the West Wales Normandy Veterans’ Association of a casket made by a local woodwork teacher with sand from each of the five beaches: Omaha and Utah for the US forces, Juno for Canada, and Gold and Sword, our British beaches. That casket is still there to remind us of the 22,000 and more British men and women who died during the Normandy campaign. I hope noble Lords will visit that casket and reflect, as I have just done.

I cite these stories to give some small personal tribute to the veterans and those who took part in those Normandy landings 75 years ago.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning


We will remember them”.

We will remember them.

Reconciliation: Role of British Foreign, Defence and International Development Policy

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the most reverend Primate on the third of his excellent speeches which I have heard over the past weeks—first, in the Abbey on the plight of Christians in the Middle East; then at the start of our Brexit debate; and now on the good Christian theme of reconciliation. The Epistles talk of ambassadors for Christ with the gospel of reconciliation, and Christ himself spoke of peacemakers as blessed, so I gladly give a few random reflections on his theme.

First, it is absolutely right that he mentions the interlocking and complementary roles of the three departments—Foreign Office, Defence and International Development—in pursuit of reconciliation. Attempts by us to solve conflicts often require a combination of these three and others.

A good example is the western Balkans during and after the bloody wars of the 1990s. Think of the horror of the massacre of 7,000 or 8,000 Muslim men at Srebrenica. The three departments had been involved in seeking solutions to these conflicts, mostly in coalition with the European Union and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has said, with the United Nations. Now the FCO and the Ministry of Defence, with their substantial reduction in resources, must view with envy the fixed financial commitment available to DfID. There is surely a need for a debate on rebalancing and redefining the role of the three departments. For example, our military was used, properly, to combat the Ebola outbreak, a development crisis.

Often, early military intervention can save lives. I cite the Rwanda genocide in 1994 when, over three months, 800,000 people were killed. A simulation exercise by West Point concluded that 500 or so military at the outset might have prevented the carnage. I had the honour of chairing two reconciliation meetings of Hutu and Tutsi representatives at the Christian Centre at Ashburnham, near Battle in Sussex, at the time, and learned at first hand of the horrors.

Surely there is no lasting development without peace and stability. Well-judged military intervention and skilful diplomacy can lead to peace, as we saw with the excellent military intervention of our forces in Sierra Leone. We should also not forget the role of arbitration mentioned by the most reverend Primate—for example, the arbitration by the Pope over the Beagle Channel dispute between Argentina and Chile.

We should be encouraged by recent progress on conflicts which earlier appeared incapable of solution. I look forward to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and listened with appreciation to the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble. After Sharpeville and Soweto, the South African problem appeared intractable, as did the problem in Northern Ireland, but Churches, the private sector and the civics—the community groups—played a key role in bridge-building at the time.

This raises the question of the role of Governments as against individuals and communities. Governments cannot forgive injustices—only the victims can. Governments can, however, provide encouragement and facilities for individuals and groups to promote reconciliation. Governments can also learn lessons from the past—lessons for good and for ill. Contrast post-war Germany and Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. In Germany after 1945, yes, the leaders of the Nazis were disposed of at Nuremberg, but the great majority of people, such as Konrad Adenauer, who played such a key role in democracy-building, were given the opportunity to build the structures of the very democratic Federal Republic of Germany. By contrast in Iraq, after 2004 the neocons in Washington overruled the State Department and Colin Powell and demobilised the Iraqi army, unpaid and keeping their arms, and destroyed the structures of the state, which led to the chaos that followed.

There are limits to the possibility of reconciliation, often not recognised by Church leaders. However worthy the cause, however strenuous the effort, some world problems may indeed be without solution and our best efforts must be directed at preventing the worst—or, in despair, redrawing national boundaries, as happened, for example, between Ethiopia and Eritrea and is now in prospect between Serbia and Kosovo.

Perhaps also the Arab-Israeli conflict may fall into this category. Much valuable work has been done at a micro level and I applaud the work of the noble Lord, Lord Stone, and bodies such as Tracks of Peace. The best efforts of President Clinton—and what US President has made as much effort on a particular foreign problem as he—and the shuttle diplomacy of Secretary of State Kerry failed even though there is, among most people of good will, a broad consensus over the outlines of a solution. Bottom up, yes, and top down. Solomon would no doubt have found a solution but, even if the effort is worth while, alas, our diplomats cannot find one.

Similarly in Cyprus—on which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, played a significant and excellent role—the broad lines of an agreement are clear in the Annan plan, but this is the Mediterranean, with all the passions of the Mediterranean, and even moderates such as President Anastasiades of the republic and Mr Akinci in the north, with strong personal chemistry, have failed to reach an agreement.

Further, it may be misplaced to seek reconciliation with some leaders. It would be impossible to seek reconciliation with a Hitler or a Pol Pot, however good one’s intentions. Think of the frozen conflicts around Europe, mostly the result of Russian adventurism in Georgia, Crimea, Transnistria or Nagorno-Karabakh, which defy the best international efforts at reconciliation.

There are, however, some signs of hope in the gloom, making a search for solutions worth while. I was co-founder and senior vice-president of a body called AWEPAA, the Association of West European Parliamentarians for Action against Apartheid, in which the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, of the Liberal Democrats, and my good and noble friend Lord Boateng played a significant part. For over a decade from 1984 I visited South Africa regularly, mostly under Church auspices. I recall in 1984 that whites were avidly reading Alistair Horne’s excellent work, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62, and fearing the worst. Horne had described how, after a number of terrorist outrages, the middle ground between the Muslim majority and the French minority collapsed, which led to a mass exodus to metropolitan France of the Pieds-Noirs as the infrastructure of Algeria was destroyed.

The whites in South Africa feared that this might also be their fate but, of course, as the white tribe, most of them had no homeland to return to. North of the Limpopo in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s policies of retribution led to economic collapse and political chaos, but in South Africa, south of the Limpopo, the middle ground largely stood firm. Christians such as Archbishop Tutu, Bishop Hurley, the South African Council of Churches and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference built bridges between black and white. Christians in this country such as Viscount Brentford of the Newick Park Initiative brought communities together.

Civic community organisations flourished, as my noble friend Lord Boateng knows very well personally. Individuals can make a difference for good or ill: a Mandela—Madiba—or a Mugabe. We should also remember that reconciliation can be dangerous. I recall the fate of the Afrikaner leader, Johan Heyns, the moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church. He invited Nelson Mandela to speak to the congress of his Church and for his pains was assassinated shortly after. I think of the poisoning of Frank Chikane, the head of the South African Council of Churches, and other Christians such as Dean Farisani. I criticised government policy at the time. It was labelled as constructive engagement, but it was a very one-sided engagement that often protected the apartheid state from international pressure. Eventually the release of Nelson Mandela avoided the temptation of retribution by the black majority.

I will make two brief final comments. We in the UK are not Norway or Canada, essentially soft-power exponents. We have at our disposal many instruments across the range in the form of first-rate military and intelligence skills, an experienced Diplomatic Service and a major aid programme. Let us also not forget the diaspora communities in our own country, which in my judgment are not used sufficiently. We have Tamils in terms of Sri Lanka and we have Kurds in terms of Iraq and Kurdistan.

Of course, as colleagues have said, we should not overlook the work of the British Council in the Middle East and over many years in South Africa, educating under apartheid. I was invited by the trade unions of the British Council to debate with Father Huddleston of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He was a great man, but he was an absolutist. He had closed the Church schools in 1954 and he wanted to withdraw the British Council from South Africa as if he expected new black leaders to arise like Chinese terracotta soldiers after liberation. Happily, the unions of the British Council decided against him. We won the debate and the British Council stayed on to play a significant role.

I recall the words of the Prophet Micah in chapter eight: yes, we should walk humbly with our God, but what does the Lord also require of us but to seek justice and love mercy? Let us think of Archbishop Tutu’s justice and reconciliation committees. By all means let our government departments across the board seek reconciliation, but we should recognise the limits. More importantly for us is that our Government should search for justice to underpin that reconciliation. Finally, I would submit that without justice, efforts at reconciliation will be built on sand.

Royal Navy: Staffing

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the depreciation of the pound is certainly an issue that we are wrestling with. To a certain extent, the Ministry of Defence hedges against currency devaluation but we cannot do that indefinitely into the future. We are protected to a large degree at the moment. But it is one of the reasons why we need an NSCR exercise such as the one going on at the moment, which is about not only investing in capability wisely but doing it in a cost-informed way.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, there has recently been good news about co-operation with the French on naval capability. Does the Minister anticipate any further developments of this sort, where we co-operate with our close allies?

UK Defence Forces

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating my noble friend on his initiative and on a Motion which begs many questions. For example, have we adjusted sufficiently to our important but diminishing role in the world? Can we afford to be, or indeed not to be, a global UK punching above our weight in defence matters? What is the state of our defence readiness?

Sir Richard Barrons, the former commander of Joint Forces Command, told the Commons Defence Committee on 14 November—the transcript of that debate is well worth reading—that currently we have,

“a Navy that is structurally underfunded, an Air Force that is holding together a bunch of very good equipment but is really at the edge of its engineering and support capacity, and an Army that is now broadly speaking 20 years out of date”.

For example, today’s Times reports that HMS “Diamond”, our Type 45 destroyer, is aborting its mission to the Gulf for engineering reasons, when its five sister ships are in Portsmouth for maintenance, shortage of staff and engine failure.

Have our people recognised the scale of the changes since the Second World War in our potential world role? Nostalgia and myths clearly played a role in the referendum debate. It is perhaps relevant that the Chancellor did not mention defence in yesterday’s Budget.

It is relevant also that the Government have just replaced a Defence Secretary who knew his job and was highly respected by the military with a man who has apparently shown little or no interest in defence and security matters and whose expertise lies in party management. The pressures on the Chancellor were shown in yesterday’s Budget, with the financial context, including the cost of equipment, worsened by the dollar/euro/sterling exchange rate post Brexit, and hard choices on whether to buy more cheaply off the shelf from the US or develop national capabilities.

As a number of noble Lords have mentioned, key questions include deciding how vital to our core interests amphibiosity is in general, the future of the Royal Marines and the potential loss of HMS “Albion” and HMS “Bulwark” in a trade-off with the Navy. Technical developments, such as artificial intelligence, have changed the debate, and of course the nature of the debate is changing so rapidly that the 2015 SDSR already needs a review.

Last week I had the opportunity to discuss the current problems with a group of Welsh Guards. They all agreed that they were being asked to do too much with too little. Are our military being asked to do too much? They spoke of too many peripheral tasks, such as training others countries’ forces, and questioned whether our 20 current active overseas missions are justified.

Does our military have too little? That depends on the role that we assign to it. A key question is: should our military be expected to have excellent capabilities across the full spectrum? Where do we seek to link with our allies, particularly with France, after Lancaster House and St Malo? What about our EU and NATO alliances? NATO is challenged by Trump’s ambivalence on the Article 5 commitment and by Turkey’s pivot to Russia, as evidenced, for example, by its purchase from Russia of an air defence system which is non-NATO compatible. Our EU critics may question the added value but, in response to the US President and Brexit, on 13 November 23 of the 28 EU states began a process of permanent structured co-operation in the defence field, which could include the development of a new combat aircraft to replace Eurofighter and Rafale. Where does all this leave us? Should we just remain on the sidelines, or do we become more reliant on the US?

As a final reflection—this was said by my noble friend Lord McConnell—clearly hard power will not defeat terrorism. We need also to rely on our excellent soft-power facilities, but we also need to constantly evaluate the relevance of all our current commitments and not ask our military to do too much with too little.