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Defence in the World

It is clear that the commitments that we have already entered into with Taiwan should be honoured. We should regard the jury as being out on the military development in China. I hope that China will become an increasingly liberalised member of the international community, that we see democratic reform and further liberal market reform, and that China develops a defensive posture. On the other hand, it is impossible to rule out the fact that China might develop none of those, maintain its position as an autocratic state and try to develop offensive capabilities. We might find that China is a great opportunity; we might find that it is a tremendous threat. We would be wise to exercise caution until we are clear about exactly which direction China is taking, but we would also be sensible to extend a hand to China that says, "If you become part of the international community and play a constructive role, that will be welcomed by the west." When we consider the types of threat and of operation that may be mounted, it is instructive to look at what happened with Russia's invasion of Georgia. It involved heavy armour, air strikes and ground troops, which is all very conventional, but it was augmented—in fact, preceded—by a surgical cyber attack on the Georgian Government and a sophisticated information operations campaign aimed at the Georgian people and the international community. Therefore, perhaps the biggest change that we need to make as we go into the years ahead, following whatever defence and security review we have, is an intellectual adjustment to the nature of both the threats facing us and our responses to them. In the future, our investment—it might be difficult for politicians to sell this—may well be in defence technologies that we cannot see in the way that we were able to see naval fleets, armoured divisions or fighter squadrons. It will be a challenge to explain to the public why we have to apply such change in the light of the technological advances being made by those who threaten us. Therefore, saying that we can focus only on "the war" at the expense of "a war" is simply not good enough for the defence of the British people, but it would be an easy way out for any Government whose first and foremost responsibility ought to be the defence of the realm.