My Lords, that is precisely the problem which I am identifying. If we try to widen it out to states that Russia sees as being within its purview and at the same time insist that what we want is not merely a trading bloc but a political union with a common foreign and security policy, and with defence implications down the line, how could Russia see that other than as more than an economic free-trade and democratic area? It could only be perceived as a threat. We are reaping some of the problems of that approach.
We are at a dangerous place if we become more aggressive and at a dangerous place if we do not. I am reminded a little of the problem that I perceive in the policy that some of my noble friends on these Benches have espoused regarding nuclear weapons. The approach that is recommended by some says, “We won’t actually send out submarines with weapons on them unless there is a threat. We’ll keep them going out and end our continuous at-sea deterrence”. So if we find a situation now where these submarines are supposedly out and there is a threat—in a few months’ time there might be a greater threat, possibly on the Baltics or possibly somewhere else—at what point do we judge that the danger is sufficient to bring them back and put in the weapons? Is it now? Is it in a month’s time? Are we already too late? If you do that, would it not increase the militarisation of a problem that we already believe we should be de-escalating? We are in a serious problem and there is no easy answer to the dilemma that we are in.
However, I am persuaded that we need to look seriously at our strategic defence posture. I do not believe that what we have at the moment, which was largely defined on budgetary issues after the last election, is serving the purpose of seriously understanding how we deal with the chaos in the wider Middle East, across the north of Africa and below it and, increasingly, in eastern Europe. These are questions which this Chamber needs to come back and explore fully and thoughtfully because they are strategic threats, which
we can ignore until the time when they come back to haunt us. Some of our friends, brothers and sisters closer to Russia, are already finding the past coming back to haunt them.
6.58 pm