Murnaghan Interview Baroness Warsi and Lord West, 31.05.15
ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS
DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, a basic question for you: what is Britain’s role in the world? Well that is the topic to be debated in the House of Commons tomorrow and it comes at a time of course when the military are facing cuts and Britain’s so-called hard power is therefore being reduced. So what should our foreign policy objectives be? I am joined now in the studio by the former head of the Royal Navy, Lord West and from Wakefield by the former senior Foreign Office Minister, Baroness Warsi. A very good morning to you both. I’ll stay with you Baroness Warsi for the first thought, there are those who say Britain should accept its limitations when it comes to the cuts we have to make to our armed forces and settle more comfortably into a lesser global role.
BARONESS WARSI: Good morning Dermot. I don't think the answer is as simple as saying that Britain needs to retreat from the international scene or that if we just spend more money on defence that’s the future. I think the [break] review that’s happening in the next few months is a unique opportunity for Britain to really [break] our role in the world, what is our purpose, how in the future are we going to defend our interests and security and how are we going to promote our trade and our prosperity and our values and [break] … is the hard power through the military and to make sure that our military is properly resourced but also the soft power of which we have many, many levers [break] effectively.
DM: Okay, Baroness Warsi, just stay with us there and thank you very much for that, I think the wind is blowing around our satellite dish a little bit there leading to some of the break up in communication. We’ll try and anchor that down a bit more securely as I put some of those points to Lord West. Is this mix between hard power and soft power and given the defence cuts and other things, do we need so much of the hard power anymore, do we need to threaten to intervene in places anymore?
LORD WEST: We have actually got very little hard power, that’s the problem, we’ve lost more and more of that and I’m afraid for our political leaders, I think they’ve lost sight of really key strategic issues and how globally important, it’s important for other countries as well that Britain plays a full part. We are a permanent member of the Security Council and permanent members of the Security Council I think, yes they need influence and we have that with things like the World Service, the fact that so many people speak English in the world, longitude which of course goes through Greenwich so time zones work for us, there are so many things work for us but historically the reason our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have been able to walk the world and talk and help shape how the world should be – which is important to us because we are still interested globally – is because there has been that mix of hard and soft power. As the hard power goes, and the Americans have started saying this, there is a danger of us becoming irrelevant in those terms which would be a dreadful loss I think to us and to the world and part of that primarily actually is loss of our military capability and I am very, very worried about that. I was worried for example when the Prime Minister didn’t attend the discussions with Putin, Hollande and Merkel about Ukraine. One of the biggest real worries I think there is at the moment to the existential threat to this country is the possibility of something happening in the Balkans, the Baltic states, with that sort of warfare and I don't think they’ve engaged enough, they’ve lost sight of that, they have been so focused on – they are not trivial things but they are domestic things. We are a country that needs to look outwards, 75% of our trade is traded – which is more than any other country, we are the fifth richest country in the world, the biggest investor around the world and we need military forces to look after those, 95% of all our imports come by sea.
DM: I think we have had the tent pegs out there in Wakefield and anchored the satellite dish down, it is a bit more secure I’m told and to get the thoughts again of Baroness Warsi. Do you go along with that, it’s the Roosevelt doctrine isn’t it, that Britain needs to talk softly but militarily still carry a big stick?
BARONESS WARSI: Let’s not forget Dermot, first of all that Britain is playing a huge role on the international scene, we are one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, we are a member of the EU, we’re a member of NATO, we’re at the head of the Commonwealth, we’re a member of the G7, the G20 and we are one of the six largest nations on defence spending so we are punching well above our weight but I also think it is important in a changing world where power isn’t just shifting away from the west, it is shifting away from governments, where citizens have an unprecedented amount of access to information, where there are every increasing complex trade links between citizens of those different nations. We are facing a new world and we need to respond to that new world, not just by making sure that our military is properly funded and resourced and supported but also by making sure that we adopt these new levers of soft power and that we engage effectively and make sure that we do continue to defend our interests and promote our prosperity.
DM: A straight question on that, Baroness Warsi, I think we know Lord West’s view, if this 2% of GDP is to be spent on defence which Mr Cameron pushed other NATO members into but during the course of the general election campaign didn’t make it a manifesto commitment. Would you have liked to have seen it being so?
BARONESS WARSI: I don’t think we need to fix it at an arbitrary level, I think it could be higher than 2%, it could be lower than 2%, what we need to first and foremost set out is what is our purpose, what is our strategic aim and what is our role in the world and what are the resources we need to fulfil that so that when politicians do commit our military armed forces to conflict overseas that they are properly funded and properly resourced but there is a question that needs to be asked before that and that is what is our role in the world and what are the different levers that we need to use to implement and effect that across government.
DM: Okay, Lord West, just on the 2%, Baroness Warsi there saying it could be more.
LORD WEST: Well I think probably when you look at the defence needs that we have, it should be more but wouldn’t it be nice if they said we will spend a minimum, because that’s what was we’re saying, a minimum of 2% on defence. I am afraid that when one looks at the plans there are and particularly if there are further cuts, there is no way for the next five years we will spend 2%. Baroness Warsi is absolutely right, we are a member of NATO, well let’s pull our weight within NATO. We are beginning not to, we are a permanent member of the Security Council, that is important for our nation because of our trade links and everything else, we are still global in the way we work as a nation, that’s how we make money and yet we are not putting military power there which all permanent members of the Security Council have otherwise what’s your right to be there? There’s a right historically, there’s a right because of all these other levers but not only is defence going, as you rightly mentioned, the BBC World Service, that has huge influence yet that’s taking cuts. There seems to be an almost strategic blindness and I find that very worrying. It feels that unlike the great leaders we had who understood these global affairs we seem to be in a world now of smaller men and smaller politics.
DM: Okay, just to give people a handle on the kind of threat that we may be facing in the future, people talking about cyber-threats and all kinds of new and different threats but do you think – and you touched on this earlier Lord West – that there’s a more fundamental one and more basic one coming up, a more old fashioned one so to speak, a stand-off in the Baltic states?
LORD WEST: Absolutely, one of the greatest existential threats at the moment to us if it went wrong is the issue of some problem happening in the Baltics. Putin has very loosely been throwing words around about use of nuclear weapons, he talks about them as war fighting weapons which they jolly well are not, they are things that you have as a last resort to stop people fighting wars and I see that as very dangerous. Are we really fully engaging? Yes, there are platitudes about it, they said them on the floor of the House, we’ve heard that but they are not really taking them as seriously as they should.
DM: Let’s get Baroness Warsi on that. Lord West there is describing a clear and present danger, you are not fumbling around here about one of the threats coming our way and Russia is re-arming at an alarming rate at the same time as the UK is cutting our forces, don’t we need to respond?
BARONESS WARSI: Sorry I didn’t catch all of the conversation because of the interference with the noise but I think generally you were talking about whether or not our armed forces are properly resourced for the threats that we face. For me there is no doubt that we need to have a strong military, there is no doubt that that military needs to be properly resourced with the equipment and the training and actually the sense of purpose of what there is out there to do but I also think that the threats that we face are far more complex than we’ve faced before, I think it’s important that we invest in cyber-security, I think it’s important that we invest in deep, meaningful relationships which go beyond the traditional relationships, we need to strengthen our relationships for example with the African Union, the Arab League, the ASEAN states and it is important that when we make those and have those relationships with countries around the world they are done in a deep, frank and honest way. We have to recognise that our version and concept of how state building is done is not the way in which all states see it but the more honest and the more frank those conversations can be, the more likely we are to be able to avoid those kind of conflicts that we’re seeing now.
DM: Last thought from Lord West.
LORD WEST: The other thing that I’m afraid our politicians forget is defence forces are there actually to prevent wars and a classic was the removal of Endurance from the Falklands for a saving of £16 million in 1981 and that led without a doubt, because we’ve seen all the intelligence, to the Argentinians invading which finally cost us £6 billion and 300 dead people. Defence forces, strong defence forces plus your soft power stop wars, they make stability and I think our politicians, some of them and not Baroness Warsi because I think she gets the message, have lost sight of that.
DM: Okay, a lesson from history. Lord West thank you very much indeed and thanks to Baroness Warsi there.
