Article by Rt Hon. Jim Murphy MP, Labour Uncut, March 2011
Yesterday the Shadow Defence Team launched Labour’s defence policy review. Dramatic events around the world and the deployment of brave UK Armed Forces make this an important time for debate on issues surrounding defence policy.
For the country this is a moment to decide whether we are a nation prepared to commit blood and treasure to causes in our national interest but beyond our borders. For the political Right, following the exposure of a weak, narrow foreign policy and a rushed, widely criticised defence review, it is a moment to reflect on whether they remain the natural home of the Forces. For the Left it is a moment to decide whether we are bound by the legacies of Afghanistan and Iraq or whether we can learn the right lessons and now help shape defence policy around our values.
The security landscape is modern and fast changing with many new challenges. The most immediate is Libya. We were right to take the action we did. As internationalists we had both the responsibility and the opportunity to help enforce international law and save innocents from slaughter.
The bravery of the Libyan opposition is not in doubt. What is unclear is their long-term motives and it is crucial that we better understand who they are and their wider ambitions so we can begin to envisage the post-conflict peace. This is vital in light of their reportedly having a ‘flicker’ of Al Qaeda among their ranks.
It was important that we had the support of the Arab League for establishing the no-fly zone, but regional partners now need to also play an important role in diplomatic efforts to determine Libya’s long-term political future, which is why yesterday’s conference was so welcome.
In Afghanistan we face a similar challenge to foster political reconciliation and sustainable stability in a nation with shallow democratic roots. Afghanistan remains a vital operation in the interests of national security, but we have to be clear about how we are getting out. There are, I believe, five areas central to achieving this: the legitimacy of the Government; overcoming fear and enforcing the rule of law; understanding and overcoming grievance by tackling social and economic failure; establishing alternatives to the poppy trade; and an internal and external political settlement.
These major challenges for defence policy sit alongside emerging threats. Globalisation is diffusing power amongst many different actors. The growing global population and the threat of climate change will exacerbate the drivers of state failure. The advance of information technologies and biotechnologies threatens international security infrastructure, while nuclear proliferation and cyber attack pose potential for mass destruction. These trends will drive state-on-state conflict but also internal conflicts between peoples.
But there is a critical new threat to global security that has been proven through events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya: the oppression of people. Many of those nations which suppress the rights of their people to take advantage of civil society, free markets, democratic expression or the rule of law can no longer be considered stable nation states. The denial of democracy has been exposed as unsustainable and the drive for self determination has shown itself to be more powerful than the clasp of autocratic control.
In today’s interdependent world these risks are increasingly shared and interconnected, and therefore the solutions must be too. That demands of us a new multilateralism in defence.
That means forming new defence partnerships, strengthening multilateral institutions and a new approach to conflict resolution through regional political reconciliation, such as that which is so important in Libya and Afghanistan.
But while conflicts will be inter-state, they will also be intra-state and new multilateral engagement between states will therefore only succeed if coupled with a parallel process between states and citizens and greater internal democratic reform. Part of that agenda requires better co-ordination of defence and development, recasting our notion of intervention so that it is about building capacity not in a way that leaves Western-created administrations dependent on overseas aid but by enabling effective national and local governance, frameworks for civil justice, the functioning rule of law and a legitimate civil police.
This agenda for defence is threatened by wider attitudes to defence policy and what I have previously termed a ‘State of Ambivalence’, where the legacies of Iraq and Afghanistan mean the notion of acting upon responsibilities beyond our borders in permanently unpopular and will lead the UK to believe in core values but be less prepared to stand up for them. This has not been the case in Libya, but public opinion is split and we must continually and effectively make the case for a proactive defence policy, learning the lessons from the past and spotting the trends of the future.
Labour’s policy reviews will aim to be part of the answer to these challenges. Russell Brown will examine the future security landscape to identify the threats of the future. Kevan Jones will look at the future force structure and how we can configure our Services to ensure the UK is best equipped to project force overseas. Michael Dugher will look at defence procurement, key to ensuring a strong defence industry supports our national security needs and that the equipment programme is to time and budget. Gemma Doyle will look at how we support our Forces and their families, and I will look at international defence institutions and whether their decision-making processes can be improved.
The lesson of recent weeks is that you cannot duck out of global events and that national interests extend beyond borders. That demands an essential internationalism, which starts with the right domestic industrial, welfare, equipment and structural policies to support our unsurpassed Forces, enabling them to promote and protect our values and interests around the world.
