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Foreign Policy

My Lords, listening to the debate launched by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, it is very interesting to contrast the experience of the last century with the situation in this new century. In the last century, we saw two devastating world wars and the Cold War, and we had to deal with monsters such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot. In this century, we face a very different set of circumstances, and have the opportunity to influence the position and make it much better than it was 18, 50 or 80 years ago. I remember so clearly when the Berlin Wall came down. I did not always agree with everything that the late Julian Amery said, but I did agree that the end of the Cold War meant that the world was once again safer from conventional conflict. That was a very accurate forecast, because we now face very different threats from those of 50 years ago. The threats are now of failed states, humanitarian disasters, nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, drugs and crime, trade and protectionism, climate change, and communal and ethnic tensions of one kind or another—to give just some examples. Any Government tackling this range of issues need to have as coherent an approach as possible. To achieve such an approach, there needs to be time for reflection before taking very difficult decisions. There needs to be leadership rather than constant reaction to instant news, and I am hopeful that, with a new Prime Minister next week, there will be a resumption of collective Cabinet decision-making and greater delegation of authority to the Foreign Secretary of the day. There needs to be an end to what we describe as sofa decision-making if we are to take measured decisions based on the collective wisdom and experience of all those who serve in government and their advisers. I am not suggesting that wego back to the days of Lord Pitt, when, as Prime Minister, he was having a conversation with his Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville, and commented, ““We have not heard anything from our ambassador to Paris for three years. If we do not hear from him this year, let us write him a letter””. I am not suggesting that we go quite as far as that, but we do need more measured decision-making. There has been a great deal of discussion about how we can bring influence to bear. Of course this should be done bilaterally with different nations, but we must work multilaterally if we want to have influence. That works rather like an orchestra in which we all have different instruments to play and different influence to bring to bear, depending on the situation. We must work through the United Nations, NATO and the European Union if we want to have influence. We will not have much influence in the world if we are outside the European Union, pull up the drawbridge and hide behind a moat, like Queen Boadicea. Nor would we have much influence in the world if we were a satellite of the United States. That is not the way forward. Equally, whatever our position with regard to the United States today—I am hopeful that we are now seeing a gradual easing of cowboy foreign policy—we still need it as friends. There is plenty of evidence from recent history—from Churchill to Harold Wilson and the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher—that one can be friends but also speak frankly to them. We need to continue to do so. I am glad that there has been quite a discussion today of the approach that we should have to intervention. Indeed, my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries dealt with this subject very thoroughly and very well. We obviously need clearer coherent criteria for dealing with regional and country disasters, especially in the Middle East and on the African continent. How do we deal with regime change? How do we deal with humanitarian disasters? My noble and gallant friend Lord Craig warned us in his speech that our service commitments are already overextended. Clearly there is a severe limit to the amount of intervention in which we can be involved. What are the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan? We must decide how to withdraw from Iraq, leaving it more secure, not less. We have already been warned that we must be in Afghanistan for a long time if we want to make a success of it. I recall going to Moscow in the late 1970s as part of a parliamentary delegation, which I think was led by the late Lord Cledwyn Hughes. I was asked to put the first question to the head of state, Mr Podgorny, who had just been on a first-ever visit to Africa. I asked him about the Soviet policy on Africa andwhat his experience was. He looked at me and said, ““Mr Luce, you ought to know that going into Africa is easy. Getting out is the problem””. That is always the issue with intervention. We have been groping towards a post-imperial, post-Cold War policy and criteria for intervention, and we have a long way to go. We have heard many contributions on this today, and I shall throw in one or two extra factors beforeI finish. First, our Foreign Office, and those of other western nations, needs to have the knowledge and intelligence to be able to take sensible decisions when dealing with particular regions and countries. Moreover, it needs rather special skills for dealing with intervention and the reconstruction of countries, as well as a clear plan and a clear policy. Secondly, we need regional policies, particularly for the Middle East and Africa. One has only to look at the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to see what a gap there is between the ideal and the implementation. We need to realise that everything that happens in every part of the Middle East affects the rest. It needs to be seen as a whole, and we need to work very vigorously with the moderate Arab nations towards solutions. I hope that I, too, will not ruin the career of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, when I say that he has been an outstanding Minister for African affairs. I hope that he still will be in a week’s time. Perhaps he will be promoted. I had better move on before I wreck his chances. In Africa, we face such tragedies as the Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe. There, again, we need a regional approach. Some African countries, suchas Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Mozambique, South Africa and Botswana, are developing democratic institutions, and we could sensibly and vigorously work with all of them behind the scenes—perhaps the noble Lord will tell us that we are—to try to influence the situation in Zimbabwe. I am extremely glad that a number of people have mentioned the Commonwealth today. In 50 years, we have seen an empire transformed into a commonwealth of 54 equal nations, accompanied by massive migration within it, so that many countries, such as our own, Canada, and Australia, are now multicultural, multi-faith and multi-ethnic. Thatin itself presents a new challenge, which the Commonwealth, with all its experience of this, can contribute a great deal to. On Zimbabwe, the commitment of the Commonwealth at Harare in 1992 to democracy and the rule of law means that the Commonwealth should stand ready when Mugabe goes to play a leading role in helping them. Finally, there have been a number of contributions on democracy. We must be careful about how we advocate democracy in other countries. Our democracy has evolved from our own history and our own experience, and the same must apply to other countries; it must be home grown. We must respect the fact that democracy must be based on local history and culture, and the circumstances of those countries, even if we are to play a leading role in encouraging it to take place.