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Defence in the World

Again, I have a lot of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman. The piracy mission is clearly dealing with—in his analysis—the symptoms of the problem. We have to protect the shipping lanes around that important artery, so have no choice but to engage the pirates directly. Obviously, it would be better if solutions could be found to Somalia's internal problems. Some work on that is under way, although it needs to gather momentum. The position in Somalia is fiendishly complicated, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, but my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, other EU countries, the United Nations, the United States and others are trying to find ways of addressing the root cause of the problem, which is a classic illustration of what happens in the case of a failed state. There is risk of terrorist activity in the south of Somalia and piracy across the country. There are pockets of good governance, which give us a glimmer of hope, but a hell of a lot of work still needs to be done to try to get Somalia into a better position. If I am right in my general observations, the question for all of us is how we can best respond to the challenges. Clearly, we must first deal with the threats that we currently face; that is why Afghanistan is the priority for us and, I suspect, will be for some years ahead. The importance that we already attach to its many and interconnected security challenges shows that it is possible to achieve success. Adaptability and flexibility will be key attributes of force planning. We need to balance our investment in people, equipment and technology to ensure that we have forces that are agile and adaptable to the realities of modern conflict, provide battle-winning capabilities and support our units on the front line. I discussed that and other similar challenges with US Defence Secretary Gates in March when I was in Washington, and I look forward later this year to sharing our analysis of the lessons learned from recent conflicts, including Afghanistan, and what they tell us about the characteristics of future conflict, as well as what they mean for our bilateral defence co-operation in the years ahead. In response to the new threats, I believe that there are five obvious and immediate priorities for us. The nature of many new threats is such that our response to them will rarely—even primarily—be military. However, when force is required, NATO will remain the cornerstone of our security architecture and we must and will ensure that we can operate with our major allies and partners. Secondly, we must operate across a spectrum from major combat operations through counter-insurgency and deal with complex challenges. In our 2008 defence strategic guidance, we created a new military task, called military assistance to stabilisation and development—MASD—to ensure that we develop the capability to counter irregular activity and support stabilisation and reconstruction efforts. It is important for the House to note that the new task now formally recognises that UK armed forces should plan and conduct operations to help stabilise and reconstruct in those locations where the security situation is too difficult to allow civilian agencies to work alone. In practice, that means that we are and will continue to be involved in a variety of activities, including protecting civilian staff, training local security forces or working on engineering projects. It means that UK forces must have the capability to carry out limited reconstruction of, for example, local infrastructure. However, perhaps more often, their main military role will be to build a secure environment in which NGOs and others can operate effectively. Our work in Afghanistan to date demonstrates that that approach can be effective. Thirdly, we clearly have to prioritise within the resources available. That means managing risk—tackling immediate priorities and most likely future threats—and doing so using structures that are agile and capabilities that are flexible to allow our forces to be able to "stretch, surge and recover". In my view, our fourth and fifth priorities are international institutional reform and future capability. International institutions have a vital role to play in defence and security as in all other aspects of international policy. The essentials are sound, but we need the right military capabilities to meet the military threats that we face, whether they are from fundamentalist terrorists in Afghanistan or at the periphery of NATO's homeland area. When I met my ministerial colleagues in Krakow earlier this year, I therefore suggested that NATO needed a rapidly deployable force that could signal our commitment to the defence of alliance territory—we called it the alliance solidarity force—because no potential aggressor must ever be allowed to think that he has a window of opportunity before NATO can effectively respond. I am glad to say that that has stimulated thinking in NATO, and I look forward to receiving a report back at our ministerial meeting in Brussels next week.