§ 3.25 p.m.
§ Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved yesterday by the Lord Shackleton, that this House takes note of the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1965 (Cmnd. 2592).
§ VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEINMy Lords, I should like to begin by apologising for a long absence from your Lordships' House, due to events beyond my control. When I arrived at the House to-day I found that I had been promoted in the order of speaking and was to speak first—I have never before received such rapid promotion, even in my own Service—so I suppose it will be my duty to put the ball on the fairway. I hope that if I do, I shall not be asked afterwards to sit on the Front Bench.
To-day we are asked to take note of the first Statement on the Defence Estimates issued by the present Labour Government. I have seen a great many Statements on Defence in your Lordships' House during the nearly twenty years I have been a Member. On this one, I would say, straight away, that I find the Statement is really not too bad. I will give my reasons later on. But I should like also to say that I am quite unable to approve of paragraph 1. I think it is a thousand pities that Defence cannot be kept out of Party politics. I do not think any good can come from the throwing of political brickbats about Defence 183 by political Parties. I do not believe that the Fighting Services like it.
It seems to me that we in this House, and Members of another place, are very inclined to concentrate on details which are really the province of Service Ministers and their professional advisers. What we ought to do, it seems to me, is to bring the cold eye of logic and common sense to bear on the Defence policy as a whole, which is closely linked to foreign policy; and that ought to be kept out of Party politics, too. I agree with the remarks made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. He concentrated on two very great issues of Defence policy, and he did not go "belly-aching" about details, which I think was right.
The responsibilities of any Government with regard to Defence are terrific; and they are never-ending. I suppose that the most difficult, and certainly the most complicated, of the Government's responsibilities is to decide the overall Defence policy that will govern the size, character, equipment and disposition of our Armed Forces. And, having made their decision, the Cabinet must keep their policy under constant review, and make such adjustments as changes in the situation may from time to time render necessary. And all the time they have to ensure that, at every stage, policy and action are kept in step, one with the other. In the long term, too, the Cabinet must be prepared to deal at a moment's notice with unexpected problems which flare up suddenly in remote parts of the world. In that connection, your Lordships will know that within recent times our forces have had to carry out most difficult active service tasks in no fewer than seven countries simultaneously. That is what has happened. As I have said, it is a terrific problem for any Government.
Now I should like to turn to the Statement itself. Why do I agree with it? Because it is quite clear to me about the great issues of policy. I read it several times, to make certain I had got it right, and I should like to enumerate what I gather, from the Statement, to be the great issues of policy. We remain a nuclear Power—this appears in paragraph 14; the NATO forces in Europe are deployed in a strategic concept which requires revision (paragraph 18); the NATO organisation 184 needs overhaul (paragraph 17); we should begin to run down our forces in Germany; it is pointless to tie up resources there which are needed elsewhere (paragraph 18). Here I should just like to say that I have always held the view, having served for ten years in the Western Defence organisation, that all we need in Germany now is one division and a small tactical air force. But I agree, of course, that it is all wrapped up in politics. The trouble is that politics are seldom common sense.
Then, in paragraph 9, we are told that any aggression from the East in Europe, even on a limited scale, is unlikely; and that a major nuclear war "can be almost entirely excluded". I personally would leave out the word "almost". Paragraph 19 says that the danger is no longer in Europe; but the same paragraph also says that the British contribution to peace and security "is paramount in many areas East of Suez". Then paragraph 49—the last one I shall quote—says that we should deploy in overseas theatres the minimum strength, and
hold ready in the United Kingdom a Strategic Reserve, together with the air transport necessary to reinforce at maximum speed to any part of the world.My Lords, I find all these principles to be exactly right. What it amounts to is that the Statement really dismisses the likelihood of any major trouble in Europe and concentrates on problems in the Middle East and the Far East. That is eminently sensible. The Statement agrees that the new key to strategy, which is the nuclear deterrent, has been a major factor in preventing war. We are also told that a major review on the whole question of our Defence policy is actually now taking place. That is excellent. I agree wholeheartedly with what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said yesterday. that against that background this Statement is really an interim Paper; and of course, the sooner we get that review, the better.There is one omission from the Statement which I should like to put before your Lordships, and particularly the Front Bench opposite. It concerns sea power. The teaching of history is that, from the days of the Greek—Persian wars and the days of early Rome, the nation which has had command of the seas has always, in the end, prevailed. Because we were masters of the sea, 185 Alamein was fought and won: we could build up our supplies and troops faster than Rommel. It was because we had defeated the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar that we were able in 1808 to land our army in Portugal. And some years later we beat Napoleon; he wielded far greater military power than we did, but was confined to a land strategy.
In recent years a school of thought has been growing up which considers there will be no role for the British Navy in a future war. Never was there a greater error. What are the facts? May I give your Lordships two facts? First, we are an island people. We fight our wars in other people's countries. We prefer it that way; it is much more convenient. If you have got to destroy some country, let it be someone else's. It is much more convenient. And while soldiers, with their personal weapons and their light equipment, can be moved by air and nourished by air, heavy equipment and supplies in large quantities, and oil, have to go by sea to the theatre of operations. We cannot get away from that fact.
I should like to give a second fact. It is that Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, is the centre of a worldwide economic system. In that system there are no large supplies of raw materials, except possibly coal. Large imports of food are necessary to feed the populations. But the overseas sources of raw materials, particularly oil, and the sources of food supply, and the transit areas through which they come, are all subject to pressure and to "cold war" threats. These have to be protected, together with the bases and sea communications from which they are controlled. Failure to protect them would lead to the collapse of the whole economic system, and ultimately to the loss of free Europe to international Communism. Our enemies will strive for success in this direction, through the strategy of indirect attack, rather than by direct aggression against the NATO front in Europe, because the indirect method and approach is far less costly and far more likely to succeed.
So, whichever way we look at it, whether it is militarily or economically, the Western Alliance must have free use of the water areas in peace and in war 186 That goes for the route around the Cape as well. Control of the seas is a matter for ships and aircraft, all operating under naval direction and control. To carry out the task efficiently the Navy must have its own aviation. I regard the aircraft carrier of the Navy as the indispensable, mobile airfield of modern armed forces. In war time—I can speak with some small experience here—the commander whose flanks and rear are secure is well placed for battle. In the NATO area in Europe our flanks and rear are the sea. For all these reasons, and for many others which I have not time to go into—because I do not like to speak for more than ten minutes; and I wish others felt the same—I hold the view that our Defence policy must be based on a maritime strategy backed by air power. I hope very much that that will be made quite clear when we have this Defence review. Having put the ball on the fairway for ten minutes, I will leave the field to other speakers.
§ 3.40 p.m.
§ LORD GLADWYNMy Lords, I must first of all apologise for not having been present during the whole of the debate yesterday. I was in fact in Germany and did not get back till the afternoon, but I have naturally read in Hansard what your Lordships said. I have naturally also read the White Paper on Defence and discussed it with my colleagues on these Benches. I have, finally, read the debate in another place on the White Paper. All I can say, having got only so far as this, and supposing that one did not know anything more about the controversy, is that one thing obviously stands out a mile, which is that the alleged dispute between the Opposition and the Government on matters of Defence is a sham battle. There is nothing, so far as I can see, or practically nothing, which divides them. Indeed, one had only to listen to the paean of praise delivered by the noble and gallant Viscount who has just sat down to understand this essential point.
It is indeed obvious that all our rulers, irrespective of Party, are largely subject to the imperatives of what one of Lord Chalfont's many unfortunate predecessors once described as the "gaunt, grey giant", namely the British Ministry of Defence. Sometimes, it is true, the politicians can get their way—for instance, 187 over things like ceremonial uniforms—but normally, after a furious debate, the expert view prevails. So it comes about that statesmen when in office often do the opposite of what they swear, while they are in the political wilderness, they will not do. One has only to read the indignant speech made in another place by Mr. Reginald Paget the other day to be convinced on this point, if indeed the facts did not speak for themselves, as I think they do.
Personally, I do not blame overmuch the Government for this apparent change of attitude. After all, Defence is a highly specialised and a very complicated subject, and the experts who know all about it are for the most part able and devoted men. It is a very good Ministry. Without access to the secret files, all of us may, at times, talk great nonsense about Defence and the extent to which it is actually possible to change the existing policy. Facts are facts, and there is little doubt that the bulk of the enormous expenditure of £2,100 million, or whatever it is, is something which in practice must be accepted, in our mad world of hydrogen bombs and competing nation States which sometimes appear intent on their own mutual destruction. I think we should all agree that most of the principles which the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, abstracted from the White Paper are perfectly acceptable to all reasonable men. Still, there are limits.
One such limit, surely, is a financial limit. If it becomes clear that we simply cannot afford to pay for all the things which the computers of the "gaunt, grey giant" tells us we should have for the purposes of our defence, then something simply will have to go. Noble Lords will no doubt have read what I thought was a very able and good article in The Times yesterday. "Gouverner, c'est choisir"—government is a matter of options. My own criticism of the Government on this important matter is that one essential point they have not chosen right. It is no good their saying that they were left a rotten legacy and that it is not their fault. I do not think that will wash. Why should the Government accept the legacy if they do not like it?
In the rather desperate situation in which we find ourselves—which almost 188 everybody, and certainly all the experts, admit is the result of our trying to do too much in too many spheres—it would have been rather heartening to feel that there was at work some new and powerful intelligence which would at least question the validity of auntie's last will and testament. All we have instead seems to be an acceptance, as it were, of the dead hand, of the "mort main" (if I may assume from the noble Lord the Lord Chancellor that that is the right term) of the past. I am indeed sorry to introduce any controversial note into what is obviously going to be a self-congratulatory debate, but I must say I find all this singularly depressing.
As I see it, the chief evidence of a rather deplorable mentality is the calm acceptance in the White Paper of the theory of Britain's "peace-keeping mission" East of Suez, as if this were not only a desirable but a positively inevitable thing. For this purpose it appears that we have to maintain bases at Aden and Singapore and expend on them anything between £400 and £500 million annually, and perhaps much more, if one counts in all the aircraft carriers, aeroplanes and hardware generally which we have to provide on the assumption that we are going to be engaged in putting out "bush fires" almost everywhere at some time or another. The basic assumption is that unless we can enforce peace, somebody else may enforce it in the whole vast area affected, and that this would necessarily be a catastrophic thing. That is what the White Paper implies. We must note also at this point that there is no question, according to the White Paper, of our protecting our own interests in the area. There is no question of that at all. That would be regarded as something immoral. All we are interested in is "keeping the peace".
Let us examine, even at the risk of transgressing the ten-minute rule imposed on us by the noble and gallant Viscount, what this peace-keeping conception is, or what it might be deemed to be. We have certain obligations under our CENTO and SEATO Treaties to take part in the general defence of the Middle East and South-East Asia. But we have no specific obligation, so far as I know, to supply any given number of forces in that area. Still, we can all agree, I think, that so far as CENTO is concerned the maintenance of a British force in its sovereign 189 base in Cyprus has for the moment—I should not like to predict the future, but certainly for the moment—a certain stabilising effect and therefore a good effect, given the potentially explosive nature of the Israeli-Arab situation and, of course, the potential threat to Turkey that exists on its North-East frontier.
We also have a moral obligation to assist any member of the Commonwealth that may be the victim of any unprovoked aggression. But this is, after all, something incumbent on us under the Charter of the United Nations, provided one takes the Charter of the United Nations seriously. Moreover, the Commonwealth members concerned in this huge area to which I have referred are principally India, Pakistan and Ceylon, two of which are most unfortunately in a state of veiled hostility with each other. So it is not altogether clear what the best form of British intervention would be, even supposing it were desirable to go to the help of one Commonwealth member or another.
However, at each end of the Indian Ocean we have, admittedly, countries which at some time or another have been given direct guarantees of British support. At the East end there is Malaysia. A former Colony, on which we still largely depend for our supplies of tin and rubber—always supposing, of course, that our interests count in this respect—this country certainly merits (here, again, we all agree) our physical support until she can stand on her own legs. There is no doubt about that. We should, therefore, do what we can to defend Malaysia against attack and, indeed, against subversion. I would only add here, and I hope that some of your Lordships may agree, that, in principle, it is difficult to see why there should be any moral compulsion, as it were, to save not only this but any successor State from itself, if by so doing we are likely to get bogged down in an expensive and interminable jungle war.
But, my Lords—and here is the point to which I am gradually working up—the area centring around Aden, including the Persian Gulf, is a very different matter. The base at Aden itself was really created at the time of the Indian Raj, when we held complete control over the whole of the Indian sub-continent. It was obviously, then, an important 190 link in the general scheme of Imperial defence which was directed from London. As oil was discovered in the Persian Gulf and to the North of it, it was also, obviously, advisable to retain Aden as a means of keeping a physical hold on the Gulf; and, of course, as happened fairly recently in Kuwait, to put troops in to defend the oil.
But as time goes on it becomes more and more evident that there is no need physically to defend our interests in Kuwait, and still less in Iraq. Of course, in certain circumstances we may have to pay a bit more for this oil, but we shall certainly get it, if only because there is now a great superfluity of oil, of gas and of energy generally in the world, and if the Arabs will not sell it to us they will probably not know what to do with it. They will not be able to sell it at all. I do not think that can be disputed. So, my Lords, our presence in the Persian Gulf now obviously has nothing whatever to do with our interests. That is a point which we must establish straight away. We are only there, if we are going to be there at all, for peace-keeping purposes. But, if that is so, why should not the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi and the Ruler of Bahrein henceforward, or in the near future, he responsible for their own defence? But no, it is necessary for us to be there, it seems, to "keep the peace", which means, if it means anything, preventing our rather medieval Sheikhs from being forcibly modernised or taken over by somebody else. That is, in practice, what is meant by "keeping the peace".
Why have we got to take on this gratuitous act of "peace-keeping"? Why not let the Arabs, including the Arabs in the Hadramauth for that matter, look after themselves? It is because of what, I believe, the Prime Minister said on his triumphant return from Washington—though I am open to correction—namely, that we must, if we possibly can, be "at the Top Table"; in other words, we must be able, apparently, to demonstrate to our astonished European and other allies that we are, as it were, in a different "league" from them. That is the point. But it is precisely this mentality that I find difficult to understand. Frankly, we cannot be at the Top Table—and this is also a fact—if we continue 191 with our small and rather shaky industrial base, and on that base just pretend to be a world Power with a mission to enforce peace everywhere, whatever "enforcing peace" may be taken to mean. And, of course, if we try to blow ourselves up into some kind of semblance of our old Imperial shape without any such base, all that will happen in practice is that the pound will be forcibly devalued and we shall be very badly deflated, too.
My Lords, I have said it many times before, and I repeat it now. The only way that we can arrive at the Top Table—and here I think in principle I shall have the support of some of my Conservative friends—if that is indeed what we want, is by forming some valid Western European entity, which will gradually make its influence felt. But if we are to do this, if we are to follow the path towards European unity now favoured, it seems, in principle by the Opposition, and even, mirabile dictu, to some small extent by the Government itself, the last thing we should do is seriously to reduce our troops in Germany. That is not a military matter; it is a political matter.
Nobody who, like myself, has just come back from Berlin and been rather deprived of his sleep by bangs during the night, and, indeed, during the day, nobody who has been in that atmosphere quite recently, can conclude that there is absolutely no danger of hostilities in Europe. It could go wrong. There are circumstances in which some incident could produce a war in Europe. I think it is very unlikely. I never thought it was likely. Years ago I said I thought it was most unlikely. But the possibility cannot be dismissed. In any case, if we took the initiative in seriously reducing our troops in Germany—of course, we can reduce them to some extent by consent—then I am very much afraid that our example might be catching. Even the Americans might catch it, and the Germans of course would then be extremely alarmed. In that sort of situation, pessimism about the defence of the West could very quickly spread. I assure your Lordships that that is true. If pessimism spreads to any large extent then, if anything, could produce a war, or anyhow a very dangerous situation, that would be it. So I think, if we have any common 192 sense or any political sense left in this country, we must move into Europe and we must, above all, strengthen our home base.
What then do I propose? I suggest, frankly, that the White Paper should be scrapped. I express a minority view, but that is what I should like to happen, and I should like it to be rewritten in accordance with the following principles. They are quite short and I will read them out to your Lordships: (a) In 1966 we should contemplate a reduction of £100 million in our expenditure on the base at Aden and on our establishments in the Persian Gulf, and we should give public notice to that effect. (b) We should propose that our communications with Singapore should pass through North America, the Pacific and Australasia, using American facilities to the maximum extent (and that, surely, would be real "interdependence" in practice) instead of going over the hostile Arabs and through a useless Aden. (c) The so-called Atlantic Nuclear Force would not be pressed, if it is found, as I fear it will be found, to be unacceptable to the Germans. Instead of that, we should outline in a new White Paper the kind of Europe Political and Defence Community that we should be prepared to join, provided naturally that the whole thing was within the framework of the Western Alliance. (d) To assist this process, we should issue a Declaration of Intent to join the Common Market on lines on which I hope to elaborate when I speak again on April 28. More generally, we should not arrogate to ourselves any greater independent peace-keeping or world rôle than do our European neighbours, who, I can assure your Lordships, all get on much better economically than we do without any foreign bases at all. (e) And finally, we should rather try to associate our European neighbours with us in an attempt, in co-operation with the Americans, to establish a sensible, long-term plan for the general defence of South-East Asia, and conceivably, of course, also of India, if, as is by no means certain, the Chinese are found over the years to be incurably aggressive in this particularly sensitive area of the world.
My Lords, in this debate I have so far heard nothing which would suggest that this would not be, broadly speaking, the 193 path of wisdom. Why should we, therefore, in this House, approve of a planning Paper which is clearly, as I see it, inadequate, backward-looking and even positively dangerous? In our view, on these Benches, my Lords, we should not hesitate to reject it out of hand.
§ LORD CARRINGTONMy Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, sits down, I wonder if I might ask him whether the speech which he has just made sets forth the official Defence policy of the Liberal Party.
§ LORD GLADWYNYes, my Lords.
§ LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPECan the noble Lord say whether he has ever been to the Persian Gulf?
§ LORD GLADWYNI spent two-and-a-half years of my early life in Persia. I went down to the fields, I think round about 1926 or 1927. The answer to the question. therefore, is, Yes, my Lords.