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Armed Forces: US Missile Defence

My Lords, when I put down my name to speak in this debate I was putting my toe into new waters. I did so because I have never really felt that the idea that you could knock out of the sky all the opposing missiles of any enemy—whether they be big or small—was one that stood up to any degree of scrutiny. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, pointed out that so far the answer to any of these defence systems has been simply more warheads. You fire more of them more frequently. They will come over but you will not be able to take them out with any of the proposed technologies. Thus the system may find a new justification as a rogue state may have the will and sufficient resources to equip itself with a sufficiently technologically advanced weapons system applicable to this form of defence—a defence system which has not received universal or national backing for its technological capability. I have a report from the United States whose cover says it all: "““Defense Acquisitions, Missile Defense Acquisition Strategy General Results but Delivers Less at a Higher Cost””." Another report states that the system tested has been successful so far but it was criticised for having one missile from a known target coming towards us and others that have failed. Will it work? Does that really matter? If we do this at a very limited level—those who are doing it may not launch it any way—and if the Americans, our allies, wish to pump vast amounts of money into this system—money which may well be better spent on accurate intelligence—does it really matter? Yes, because it might work; yes, because the technology that is being acquired here is a threat to any other major state. Once you have the delivery system you can expand any weapons system, once it has been developed and once it is in a prepared state. A disastrous outcome of this logic can be that huge amounts of money are pumped into a system which is inadequately deployed to meet most of the threats and others are inspired to take countermeasures. The countermeasures would, quite obviously, take out the early-warning systems, thus creating a situation in which one has to strike back earlier. That is a very familiar scenario to anyone who grew up, as I did, under the reality of mutually assured destruction. One would strike back earlier, there would be cut-off points and people would, I hope, back away. That is how the system appears to me. I cannot do justice to some of the ideas that came out of the Star Wars project because I would be bound to get some of the acronyms wrong, but there are lasers and chemical weapons systems and so on, which apparently are technically possible but have not yet been perfected. There are systems that can strike early in the boost phase of a missile coming towards you. That is probably where the systems will work but, once again, you will have to consider striking back at the delivery system. However, it totally fails to take into account an almost inevitable consequence: if a rogue state or a group within a state wishes to deliver a weapon of mass destruction—we are politely forgetting chemical weapons in this debate—you do not have to deliver it by missile; it could be delivered in dozens of ways. You could stick it into any conventional form of transport, give it a shipping document, send it where you want it to go and detonate it at the point of its interception by the civil authorities, so achieving your goal. We are using vast amounts of resources to meet a threat that does not exist, but which will annoy Russia. Whatever goes on in the mind of Russia, it is a country that, throughout its history, has shown a degree of fear and nervousness about its neighbours, which probably should be drawn to the attention of the rest of the world. It is potentially a threat to China and to India. If it is likely that the current approach will not work, the easiest way of deterring the threat is to take away valuable resources from what is going on, so alienating your potential allies who, between them, might stand a much better chance of cracking down on the problem. What are we buying into? It is something that might blight some form of diplomacy in international relations in the future; it could build up a victim culture in all those states—big and small—that see it potentially being directed against them; and ultimately it will not work. I suggest that we remove ourselves from it. We need to get enough distance to say that it is not the way forward. If we do not do that, we will commit ourselves to something that is ultimately counterproductive.