ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well let’s stay now with the threat posed by Russia and whether defence cuts have put Britain at risk.  I am joined now by Lord Stirrup, Jock Stirrup, of course who was head of the RAF from 2003 to 2006 and then head of all the armed forces until 2010.  A very good morning to you, Lord Stirrup, what do you think?  It has been said that especially with these over flights, these Russian aircraft that are simply probing and testing not just British defences but NATO defences, that of course the RAF have suffered some pretty swingeing cuts.  

LORD JOCK STIRRUP: Well all three services have suffered swingeing cuts as part of the effort to eliminate the deficit.  I think when we talk about the threat posed by Russia we need to bear a number of things in mind.  First of all we are really talking about the threat posed by Putin, Putin and Russia have become inseparable.  Putin is running a gangster regime in Russia and he is running a gangsterish foreign policy so it is crucial to understand that.  

DM: Do you think there are those in Russia and those in the Russian military who I’m sure you know the mind of pretty well, do you think there are those who are doubting some of this strategy?

LORD JOCK STIRRUPT: I am sure there are some who are doubting it but I’m sure that equally there are some who are supporting it but first of all we have to remember that we are talking about Putin.  Secondly we have to remember that in terms of the international community and in terms of security within the international community, we in the west depend upon our membership of NATO.  We in these islands gave up national defence a long time ago in favour of collective security, collective security delivered through NATO and NATO over the years has, in the eyes of Putin at least, become weak.  Putin views the west as weak all round and that is a very, very dangerous position for us to be in so our response to Putin and Putin’s actions in the Crimea and eastern parts of the Ukraine, need to be strategic responses.  Of course there are tactical reactions we have to make to the things he does but we have to have a long-term strategy and part of that is being strong and making sure that Putin understands we are strong and he doesn’t understand that at the moment.  

DM: But in terms of this cat and mouse in the skies and indeed on the seas around British shores, I mean you rose up through the ranks didn’t you during the course of the Cold War, do you think we need to dust down some of the strategy booklets from then?

LORD JOCK STIRRUP: Well I think we’ve already done that and I think that NATO has started to do that.  My concern within NATO is not whether the strategic, the operational and tactical responses will be appropriate, my concern is that NATO is just not spending enough resource on defence.  The UK is still spending above 2% of its GDP on defence although the future for that beyond 2015 is uncertain and we need to make sure that it is certain in this country but we also need to be doing much more, more widely across NATO in that regard.  

DM: So what about our European NATO allies?  I mean the fingers have been pointed very recently at Germany, the big economic power and of course the diplomatic power in terms of the negotiations with Putin but militarily we read about German soldiers training with broomsticks.  

LORD JOCK STIRRUP: I think there is more that Germany could be doing.  I think we should acknowledge the role that Chancellor Merkel has played in recent developments and indeed, although Putin does regard the West as weak one of the things I think that has surprised him has been Germany’s response which has been much more robust than he anticipated and I think in large measure that’s down to Chancellor Merkel so we should be grateful for that but I think that Germany does have to, as other nations do, shoulder more of their share of the burden of defence spending to provide security within Europe.  What we’re talking about here is not a military confrontation with Russia and with Putin, the problem is that if NATO is weak or is perceived to be weak by Putin, then the risk of miscalculation is much greater and our security is much lowered as a result.  

DM: But that question I put to the Shadow Foreign Secretary, what about the idea then, if as you say Putin has decided that NATO is weak, what about at least giving the Ukrainians some of the weaponry, the modern weaponry, that they say they so need?

LORD JOCK STIRRUP: Well I think that is something we need to think about very carefully.  There are arguments on both sides and you have heard some of them this morning.  My point is that if we were to do that, it needs to be part of a long term strategy, not just a short term knee-jerk response so it might be appropriate and it is something we need to think about very carefully but we need to think about it in the context of all the other things that we’re doing diplomatic, political, economic and military.   

DM: And just your expertise in the air, do you think there is a risk as has been said, with the increasing number of Russian military flights probing our air space, of some kind of collision, some kind of disaster in the skies given that they seem to fly almost in a cloak sense?

LORD JOCK STIRRUP: Well yes, there is, there’s no doubt about that.  They are becoming more aggressive.  First of all we have to remember that these aircraft, Russian Bears for example, are not going on these very, very long flights simply as joyrides.  They are mission rehearsals, these aircraft launch stand-off missiles against Western targets and just as they used to do in the Cold War, they are now practising those profiles, they are mission rehearsals, that’s the first thing.  The second thing is that they’re testing us, they’re testing our defences, they’re testing our reactions and they are engaging to a degree in a game of chicken and that’s very dangerous.  So we are seeing the possibility of mid-air collision not between I think RAF and Russian aircraft but between Russian aircraft and civilian aircraft, increasing.  

DM: Okay and just on the issue of cuts, in that game of chicken and shepherding these aircraft away from our shores and our air space, have we got the resources in the RAF or are we right on the limit?

LORD JOCK STIRRUP: Well we’re right on the limit but we’re right on the limit everywhere, in the RAF, in the Navy and in the Army.  This was done consciously as a contribution to the reduction of the deficit and frankly everybody in the military understood that in 2010, they all understood that the fundamental prerequisite for a sound defence is a sound economy but the economy is recovering, GDP growth is now looking much more robust, employment  is rising, inflation is down and the approach that was taken in 2010 was to take the short term pain but once the economy had recovered, to increase investment in defence.  We have to remember that the 2010 defence review was predicated on defence expenditure increasing in real terms every year after 2015, the Prime Minister acknowledged that when he announced the outcome of the review in the House of Commons and indeed, he himself was personally committed to that although of course he couldn’t commit any future government.  We now have to make sure that those undertakings are kept and that that overall approach is followed.  It was important in 2010, it has become much more important now.  

DM: Lord Stirrup, Jock Stirrup, thank you very much indeed, pleasure to see you.