Security in a Dangerous World

UK Labour’s Rt Hon John Spellar is Shadow Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister and is well known in Australia, having visited many times. He is one of the best informed members of the House of Commons on Australia and its strategic interests. Before the UK 2010 election, John Spellar was a Minister in the Whip’s Office with the official role of Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Household. Under Tony Blair’s Labour government he served as Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Minister for Transport and Minister for Northern Ireland. On Monday 21 February 2011, John Spellar addressed The Sydney Institute to discuss regional and global security, the changing global balance and Britain and Australia’s role in that process.

SECURITY IN A DANGEROUS WORLD

JOHN SPELLAR

In spite of recent events we are both still lucky countries. I was struck by media interviews with tourists coming back from Tunisia describing breakdown on the streets reinforcing the fact that the world is a dangerous place.

An understandable response to turmoil in the world it would be a desire to “pull the covers over our head” and try and shut out the world, but it’s not an option for either of us as major trading nations. For ourselves, the UK, we are a country with a very big percentage of our GDP going for exports and also the centre of the world’s financial hub and also, in many ways, the crossroads of the international community.  For yourselves as a major raw materials exporter and also increasingly engaged with the economy of the region.  Both of us have huge numbers of citizens in countries around the world, at the same time unfriendly military and terrorist capabilities expand.

So it is not just our shared history and our strong family ties that hold it together, significant as they are. It is also our shared values going into the future and our shared common views and interests. We have huge trade between us and vast cross investments, indeed last year the UK was once again the largest Foreign Direct Investor in Australia. There are 100,000 Australians in the UK and over a million British born in Australia.  Switch on a television, look in a paper, look at the political and cultural links, our parliamentary systems.  We share so much and will continue to do so.  That is why we work together in international bodies and why we have been engaged together in conflicts round the world from the First World War through to today in Afghanistan where British and Australian troops have been performing with heroic bravery.

Nor indeed is isolation a realistic prospect for countries that are larger geo-political, military or economic powers than us. What of other emerging countries. Brazil’s dramatic economic development is heavily dependent on agriculture and mineral exports. Russia’s stability depends on the export of raw materials. China needs to maintain its manufacturing exports dynamic in order to deal with massive population movements.

Even the United States with its vast economy and reach no longer has splendid isolation as an option. It doesn’t mean that we should join the fashionable writing off of America’s position as the world’s Super Power. Even today its economy is nearly a quarter of the world’s GDP.  A recent Economist map highlighted this by relating each State to the GDP of a major country. Texas was as big as Russia, California as big as Italy; Australia was equivalent to New York State.

And it’s not just an historical position. It’s true that the US declined from 50 per cent in 1945 to 23 per cent in 1990, but Europe showed a dramatic recovery during that period and the defeated Powers Germany and Japan roared back. Was America less significant because of that? Since then the US has shown a further relative decline down to 20 per cent.  But this is at a time of unprecedented growth in Asia. To lose three per cent of world GDP in these circumstances does not suggest a nation on the slide. So the message is clear. Don’t write America off. The facts won’t stop the persistent snipers who will never forgive America for winning the Cold War. They’ll research it on Google, share it with their friends on facebook, spread it wider on Twitter, read it on their Dell computer or iPad. Furthermore US defence expenditure is more than the next 15 countries and the size and sophistication of its defence arsenal is still awesome. There is only one superpower.

However, we should recognise that both the USA and China do see themselves as different and unique. We are fully aware of the commitment to America exceptionalism which runs through American public life and is clear from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and most recently from President Obama’s State of the Union Address where he praised “a nation founded on an idea” and at several points stressed what for America “sets us apart”.  We will also on an international community have to cope with the Chinese centric mentality which also ascribes a unique position to China, its history, fairly homogenous population and culture.

I say this not in a critical but descriptive sense. It is also clear that localised problems can spread rapidly through the world. A bank failing in New York can trigger a terrifying near collapse of the banking system a new strain of bird or swine flu in Indonesia or Mexico, CO₂ increases spread throughout the worlds atmosphere, crop failure in Russia triggers worldwide food price rises.

So the question is not whether we should interact with the rest of the world, but how and under what ground rules. This is partly about bilateral relations with key partners, especially immediate neighbours, ourselves and the EU, the US, with Canada and Mexico and yourselves with Indonesia, India with Pakistan, Japan with China and Finland with Russia.

This is also about strategic relationships. Clearly for us this is the transatlantic relationship, but also close working with Australia and Canada. For yourselves it’s the debate about your relationships in East Asia, particularly with China and Japan. I would contend that the nature of those relationships is arguable, but a necessity for them is not. It’s certainly true that the current UK Government is focusing very much on bilateral relationships, potentially to the detriment of multilateral organisations.

However, let me stress this should not be at the expense of the involvement with and indeed reform of international bodies. I fully understand the frustration of Leaders and Ministers at the discordant and often dysfunctional voices at international gatherings.  The desire to have a side meeting between the US and China to sew things up must be very strong. It is inevitable, of course, also that the big players have most say, but the modern world is too complex and interconnected for that to be the only way of doing business.

Furthermore all of us have to recognise that instability anywhere in the world can threaten security everywhere in the world, that’s why our Shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander, and his predecessor, Yvette Cooper, have stressed that one of their main focuses is the framework of reform of international institutions. I don’t want to pretend that this is easy, but it’s still clearly very necessary.

But it is not just about structure, but also about the rule and responsibilities of international bodies and also the rights of individual nations. As an example I would like to explore the concept of humanitarian intervention.

With the Chilcot Enquiry questioning Tony Blair again last month inevitably there will be a focus on military intervention. It’s quite likely that the public debate will still be the same stale one as to whether this was legal or not which generates columnists fees for academics, but actually distracts from the serious policy issue which is the justification for military intervention and also the organisational efficiency with which the Coalition that invaded Iraq fulfilled its task after the collapse of Saddam Hussein regime.

I would focus more on the doctrine than on the organisational side in this paper. The current case for liberal humanitarian intervention is attributed to Tony Blair’s Chicago speech in April of 1999 which no doubt particularly influenced by events in Kosovo.  It also laid out many of the criteria for intervention much of which would seem to draw its inspiration from the theological justification for a “just war”:

First, are we sure of our case? War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress; but armed force is sometimes the only means of dealing with dictators.  Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? We should always give peace every chance, as we have in the case of Kosovo. Third, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Fourth, are we prepared for the long term?

In the past we talked too much of exit strategies.  But having made a commitment we cannot simply walk away once the fight is over; better to stay with moderate numbers of troops than return for repeat performances with large numbers. And finally, do we have national interests involved? The mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo demanded the notice of the rest of the world.  But it does make a difference that this is taking place in such a combustible part of Europe.

Blair made clear in that speech that he was dedicated to the cause of internationalism and against isolationism. And gave many examples of international inter-dependence.

Interestingly enough this was not the first major contribution on the policy of intervention made towards the end of the last century. In 1998 Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, gave the Ditchley Foundation Lecture, which was well before the Chicago speech.  He very bluntly signalled his intentions by heading his speech “Intervention” and said in his introduction that some may think “I have come to preach a sermon against intervention, I suppose that would be the traditional line for a citizen of a former British colony to take.”

He rightly identified that Article 2.7 of the UN Charter protects National Sovereignty and even forbids the United Nations to intervene “in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State.” He went on to point out the United Nations was established to intervene, to prevent conflict where they could and put a stop to it when it’s broken out.  Or if neither of those were possible, at least contain it and prevent it from spreading. As he pointed out, Chapter V1 deals with the peaceful settlement of disputes while Chapter V11 describes the action the UN must take when peace comes under threat or is actually broken. He goes on to point out that Article 2.7 which defends National Sovereignty can be set aside if it stands in the way of the Security Council’s overriding duty to preserve international peace and security.

However, this did not resolve the dilemma because as he said as wars today are civil wars or at least that’s how they start and they are anything but benign particularly to civilians.  He further highlighted the dilemma for those who are opposed to intervention and he highlighted a number of real life examples. He said he was haunted by the experience in Rwanda where the commander of the UN mission indicated that with 5,000 peace keepers he should have saved 500,000 lives. Subsequently, Sierra Leone also demonstrated the ability of a relatively small, but well disciplined force to stop the mayhem and murder on the streets.

Also, interestingly enough, Blair pointed to cases during the Cold War when the UN enforcement capacity was largely paralysed by divisions in the Security Council where neighbouring countries intervened to prevent extreme violation of human rights.

In 1971, India’s intervention ended the Civil War in East Pakistan allowing Bangladesh to achieve independence. In 1978 Vietnam intervened in Cambodia putting an end to the genocide rule of the Khmer Rouge. In 1979 Tanzania intervened to overthrow Idi Amin erratic dictatorship in Uganda. And of course Kosovo was conducted without a UN resolution, which incidentally would not have been achievable because of Russian opposition. Furthermore, many of those most critical of Iraq, the Lib Dems and Clare Short, were also enthusiastic supporters of our intervention in Kosovo and indeed had been highly critical of the previous Tory government for not intervening in Bosnia.

This does not mean we have to be involved everywhere in the world.  Capacity, geography and regional politics all provide constraints. However, the fact that we cannot intervene everywhere does not mean we should not intervene anywhere. The fact that we could act in Sierra Leone did not mean we could act similarly in Zimbabwe and Darfur.

Accordingly while the ongoing argument over Iraq clouds the issue we should still defend the principle of humanitarian intervention. To conclude in the words of Kofi Annan at Ditchley:

The UN Charter, after all, was issued in the name of the peoples, not the governments, of the United Nations. Its aim is not only to preserve international peace – vitally important though that is – but also to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person.  The Charter protects the Sovereignty of peoples.  It was never meant as a licence for governments to trample on human rights and human dignity.  Sovereignty implies responsibility, not just power.

So my concluding message is clear. The Enlightenment and free societies still have a huge amount going for them, though their success is not guaranteed. However, we should consider if dictator, authoritarian and theocratic societies are so strong why do they need so many repressive powers and agencies to enforce them. That the free nations and free peoples have to work together to ensure that the open society triumphs and I am sure that British and Australia will be together in that struggle.