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Defence Policy

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) rightly reminded us of the human dimension to all our defence debates. Yesterday's roll-call of honour of the 37 of our fallen servicemen who died while our Parliament was in recess is a chilling reminder of what we are talking about. I am sometimes careful about straying outside what I call the comfort zone of the aerospace industry, about which I have acquired a detailed knowledge. I am always amazed at the expertise in the House in just about every area of defence, of which I have little knowledge, but I would like to spend a moment or two observing that we are in the run-up to a general election and that all parties are committed to a strategic defence review. My observation on that is that we seem to be in era of what I call entrepreneurial warfare, in which a man in a rubber boat can take out the USS Cole. Many in the House grew up at a time when the cold war was the prevalent threat—when there were big systems versus big systems and big armies were the answer to everything. We need to learn very quickly how to be much lighter on our feet in order to be able to respond to a world of continuing uncertainty. Who could have predicted that the use of commercial airliners as a weapon of war by those who attacked the US on 9/11 would fundamentally change what was done militarily over the previous decade, as witnessed by the invasion of Iraq and the current expedition in Afghanistan? Many have sought to justify why it was right for us to participate in both those theatres and I accept the logic of what is put before us, but I would observe that in a world of 24/7 media coverage when members of the public have war thrust into their front rooms and see visions of the dead arriving back at Brize Norton, it adds a different dimension to how we need to debate the future of our defence policy. Members of the public are involved—and they are involving themselves, as witnessed by the strength of organisations such as Help for Heroes, which supports our forces—in a very different way than hitherto. Most people might have said that the annual poppy collection was the main way people showed their solidarity with the fallen and those who need help, but things are different now. If we are to have a strategic defence review, all parties must in some way involve members of the public in understanding the purpose of defence. It is not just about the enemy offshore of the UK, as it takes in a global dimension. We must educate people to understand the purpose of our military expeditions. We in this place must be certain of why and when we want to intervene. I hope that the debate on Afghanistan will reach some kind of conclusion shortly. If I were the enemy in this 24/7 world of the media and were listening to people agonise over whether we have the right equipment, whether we know what we are doing in Afghanistan and what is the reason for it, I would be rubbing my hands with glee. That is what the enemy must be doing, because they are receiving the message that the people whom they regard as their enemy do not have a clear clue what they are doing. They are ill-equipped, they have no strategy, and they are falling out with each other. This thing called NATO is not working. All that must give the enemy tremendous encouragement The sooner we coalesce around a plan and make it work, the better, because that will be provide the platform on which the strategic defence review will take place. What slightly worries me about the SDR—and I have noticed this so many times in the House—is that when a convenient event in the future allows us to shovel all the difficult issues of today on to tomorrow, we tend to over-egg what an SDR can do. If we were so imbued with brilliant foresight, we would be continually adjusting the way in which we run our armed forces and our defence policy so that we would know what was around the corner. We would adjust our procurement, and so forth. These one-off long gaps between one SDR and the next push to the very limits the credibility of how far we can see into the future. If there is one thing that I have observed, it is that in a world of entrepreneurial war in which the enemy is light on its feet and capitalises on weakness, it tends to say—the improvised explosive device is but one example of this—"We do not have the big systems, but we do have a very effective way of disturbing the enemy." We therefore need to be flexible, innovative and technologically clever. We need to be able to move in and out of theatres quickly, and that requires helicopters and lift capacity. We need equipment that gives us mobility and flexibility. The amount that we will need in the future is a question for experts, but those seem to me to be the key elements that perhaps distinguish the future from the past, when we bought big chunks of kit because we were dealing with a very different situation.