An interview with Dr Liam Fox, a Conservative Member of the British Parliament, former Secretary of State for Defence (2010–2011) and Shadow Secretary of State for Defence (2005–2010) under David Cameron. Interview conducted by Robert Czulda.
Robert Czulda: Let’s start with NATO. It is hard not to ask you about the future of NATO after Afghanistan.
Liam Fox: I think it’s quite hard to answer that question in such a binary form as that. NATO needs to have a much clearer view of what its political role is going to be, and it needs to ask itself whether it’s serious about maintaining its military role, and if so, how it’s going to get from a pretty unsatisfactory position in terms of military hardware into a much better place in terms of its capability.
The first thing I think it’s worth pointing out is that NATO stands for a description of the membership of the alliance, not the geographical remit of the alliance, because the remit of the alliance is to maintain security and to protect the interests of its member states. It does not define where those interests may be. So this argument that NATO shouldn’t be acting “out of area” is to fail to understand the NATO treaty and why it was set up in the way that it is.
During the Cold War, NATO very clearly understood that. It understood that it had to have a political role and that defence against intrusive and aggressive communism from the Soviet Union wasn’t just about stopping tanks rolling across the central European plains. It was also countering their political ideology. During the Cold War we used to underline that our values were not just different from, but better than, the values of Soviet communism. We strongly believed democracy was better than the alternatives. We thought that a rule of law mattered, that a concept of rights of individuals was an important thing. We need to get some of that language back. I really think that there needs to be a re-energizing of NATO’s central political purpose. So that’s one thing.
Robert Czulda: And what is the second element?
Liam Fox: The second thing is the physical embodiments of that political approach, and far too few NATO member states are making sufficient contribution to the hardware of the alliance. Far too many are depending on the American security guarantees. That is not a responsible policy.
Having said that, we need to also grasp the reality that the expense of modern military technology and the future budgets of member states is not going to be such that – apart from possibly the United Kingdom, France and Germany, which should but won’t – none of the European states are going to really be able to be “mini-versions” of the United States with all-round military capability. Therefore, it requires something of a leap of faith for both NATO and some of the smaller member states to contribute niche capabilities that can then be available to the whole alliance. That will require a level of trust that I think has been shaken in recent times. So rebuilding that trust in NATO, as a coherent military organization that genuinely respects all its Article 5 commitments, is essential if some of the smaller states are to play what I think could be a fuller and more constructive role in NATO as a wider entity.
Robert Czulda: I think that Afghanistan showed a huge military gap between the European allies and the United States. This is not only my opinion, as the same point was underlined several times by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The then British Secretary of State for Defence, John Hutton, called this “free-loading on the back of the US military”. I’m not sure if you agree with me but I’m afraid that this gap is even bigger now than a decade ago.
Liam Fox: It’s twofold. One thing is the actual possession of military instruments. The second, and most important, is the will to use them. It is very important to have military hardware – but what happens when you get to a situation like Libya when suddenly our German partners turned around and said, “Not only are we not supporting you at the UN, we are not going to make our military contribution available to the rest of our NATO partners”? Now that’s a serious crisis of political will rather than military capability, so both need to be identified. And knowing Bob Gates well, I am sure that he was referring to the two of them together rather than just simply the military hardware, although it’s very clear that we simply cannot carry out some operations as the European elements of NATO without the necessary logistics being supplied by the US in particular. So there are gaps that the European components of NATO need to be able to put together.
Robert Czulda: If you listen to European leaders they always say that European nations must do more to contribute to their own security, but their defence budgets are decreasing. Actions are in a very visible opposition to words.
Liam Fox: Exactly.
Robert Czulda: Why is that? And what consequences to European security might it bring?
Liam Fox: It means ultimately that Europe becomes more dependent on the United States and on their will. Which is ironic because this is at a time when most of the European Union leaders say that we should be more independent from the United States, but through their debts they are making us more dependent on them.
Robert Czulda: But why are these political ambitions not followed by real actions?
Liam Fox: I don’t know why. I think it’s because they don’t feel that they have domestic pressure, because they don’t consider threats as imminent. But they should ask the Estonians what a cyber attack from Moscow feels like. I talk to my colleagues in Poland and they have a much better understanding of that issue, but if you move away from that part of Europe, if you go to Italy and Greece, Portugal and Spain you will suddenly see that they don’t perceive the same level of threat. They are very comfortably sitting between the southern flank of NATO and the Atlantic.
Robert Czulda: So maybe NATO is too big right now?
Liam Fox: No, it’s not big.
Robert Czulda: What I wanted to say is that Spain does not have much in common with Poland in terms of geostrategic situation.
Liam Fox: No. I think we have a lot in common – what we have is…
Robert Czulda: But the threats are different.
Liam Fox: I wonder, in the era of what I describe as the “war of the invisible enemy”, particularly in cyber space, if our interests really are so different. It may be different in terms of, as I said, tanks rolling across the European plains, but are they really different in terms of threat to vital national infrastructure? I doubt it. So I think there is probably a gap between their perception of the risk and the risk itself.
Robert Czulda: When I was in Brussels a few weeks ago I talked with some members of the European Parliament from the Security and Defence committee. And they all told me that if you want to promote such issues as global warming, environment, and social security in Brussels, then fine – you will find support. But if you want to raise a question of hard security you will be attacked from every side. So maybe it is first of all a problem of mind-set?
Liam Fox: When you say Brussels, you mean the European Union?
Robert Czulda: Yes.
Liam Fox: The European Union is not the only thing that exists in Brussels. And, of course, if you are one of the EU fanatics who believe that the only goal in life is an ever-closer union, NATO is one of the things that stands in the way of that goal, because NATO means that security, which is a very important element for nation states, is kept outside the EU arena. Of course, as I have already mentioned, the great irony is that those who want Europe to be most independent from US influence are the ones who keep promoting all this expenditure in any area other than security, in the seemingly absurd view that the European Union can be an alternative to NATO in terms of European security – which I guess is your next question.
Robert Czulda: I believe you are not a big supporter of the European Union as a military tool, you don’t want to…
Liam Fox: I am not a supporter of European Union at all.
Robert Czulda: Why? Such a concept is quite popular in, let’s say, Germany or France.
Liam Fox: If states in NATO wish to cooperate on a multilateral basis, whether that’s the European Union or otherwise, then they are perfectly free to do so, but to try to create a parallel infrastructure at a time when NATO has insufficient funds can only divert scarce resources and replicate unnecessarily. There are things that the European Union can do. Peacekeeping, as we have shown in the Balkans, can be one of them. But any structural replication that weakens NATO is bad for the whole of Europe, and those within the European Union who believe they can weaken NATO without weakening European security are absolutely fooling themselves.
Robert Czulda: Don’t you think that NATO is already very weak, as shown in Afghanistan, and also I think in Libya?
Liam Fox: I don’t think it’s very weak. There are areas for improvement, and it can potentially be very strong. But it will not be strengthened by diverting its resources further.
Robert Czulda: How can you strengthen NATO?
Liam Fox: As I said, we need to set out a clearer political role for NATO in the modern world, and that means accepting that we are moving into an era of very different types of threats, particularly in cyberspace. But also that we live in a very interdependent world, more so than before. I was talking to an American politician, a friend of mine, who was telling me that he believes that America’s energy independence is wonderful because that means they will not have to rely on some of the geopolitical hotspots like the Strait of Hormuz for their energy. And I said to him, “Well, what do you think will happen to the American economy if China or Japan can’t get their oil?” You can’t escape from such problems – they will have an instant impact on you whether you like it or not. We now live in a globalized economy and that brings with it unavoidable importation of strategic risk. We need to understand that this world, where we love the potential for trade and the elimination of poverty, also brings with it new risks and new responsibilities, which we will need to maintain.
Robert Czulda: If you were Secretary General of NATO, let’s say, what would be your priorities for NATO for the next 5–10 years?
Liam Fox: The first thing is to get an understanding of the new global reality in security. From that I think flows an understanding of what we might need to do to protect ourselves in that environment. We do need to cooperate much more in things like cyber security. States need to build up their own strengths but when you have got smaller nations, which simply cannot be expected to develop a full range of capabilities, we need to try to work together to determine what contributions these countries might bring. Clearly countries like the United Kingdom and France will probably continue to have a full range of capabilities anyway. That is a good guarantee that the European elements of NATO can still be a vital part of the alliance.
But we also have to understand that the United States will have new calls on its attention from Asia-Pacific. People in Europe seem to forget there is a west coast to America as well. The United States is just as much a Pacific power as it is an Atlantic power. And it’s not unreasonable for the Americans to expect the European members of NATO to contribute more. With only four countries meeting the 2% GDP, it’s not exactly indicative of countries willing to shoulder their own security, whether they call it NATO or whether they call it the European Union.
Robert Czulda: I am not sure if you will agree with me, but at least in Poland, we see two, let’s say, camps: older members of NATO who want this alliance to be first of all a tool for overseas operations – like you said, to act globally – and also a group of new members, central and eastern Europeans who want NATO to be more Article 5 oriented. Do you see this kind of division?
Liam Fox: It needs to be both. I think it needs to be both.
Robert Czulda: But would you agree that we have two camps within NATO?
Liam Fox: I see the newer entrants as being much more focused on Article 5 and I can understand why. I am very sympathetic to them. I see Poland, like Turkey, as being of enormous geopolitical importance – we need to pay more attention to both of them. And we need to foster in both those countries a real sense of the importance, politically and militarily, of NATO. All the new-entrant states in NATO have to absolutely believe in our Article 5 commitment. I have absolutely no doubt that Britain is fundamentally committed to Article 5.
Robert Czulda: The United Kingdom has been withdrawing troops from Western Germany which also puts into question NATO’s credibility, doesn’t it?
Liam Fox: No, I don’t think that does.
Robert Czulda: No?
Liam Fox: No. If you were saying Britain was pulling troops back from Germany and we were not investing in missile defence systems or a new generation of airpower, then I would think maybe you would have a point, but since we are doing both of the former, I don’t think it does in any way represent that.
Robert Czulda: Do you think that the US “Pacific Pivot” harms Article 5 commitment? I mean, this triggers substantial withdrawal of US troops from Western Europe, which causes huge anxiety. In case of war there is nobody to help us, because soon there will be no British troops on the continent and a very small contingent of US military.
Liam Fox: How long would it take to reinforce troops on the continent? Not long, and I really don’t see that as being a problem. I think it’s far more important for us to be able to counter Russian cyber influence than to worry about whether we have tanks and men on German soil. It would actually be a mistake if we were so focused on refighting the battles of the Cold War that we forgot to fight the threats that actually face us today. Again if you look at Estonia, what do you think the Estonians would rather we were spending our money on? On enhanced cyber capabilities or troops in Germany?
Robert Czulda: The Georgian-Russian war of 2008 proved that traditional, conventional threats are still valid.
Liam Fox: Georgia wasn’t a member of NATO. There was no Article 5. There was no deterrent because there was no Article 5 commitment. It’s very important that countries outside NATO understand how committed we are to Article 5. Without Article 5, there is no NATO.
Robert Czulda: Also in this case words should be followed by actions, and if you ask Polish decision-makers and officials, many of them are disappointed with the low level of NATO’s commitments, as shown for example in the scale of multinational exercises.
Liam Fox: On the other hand, what’s happening to the Polish defence budget?
Robert Czulda: It’s 1.95 per cent of GDP.
Liam Fox: Look at the budgets around you – they are too low. NATO member states need to show more commitment. I would like to see Poland taking more of a leadership role amongst those countries of Central and Eastern Europe and showing by example what can be done. There is no doubt we are seeing a resurgence in Russian views about what constitutes the “near abroad”. What’s happening in Ukraine should be of enormous concern to us. Do we want Kiev to be more like Warsaw or more like Minsk?
Robert Czulda: It is hard not to ask you about Russia. From the Polish perspective Russia is still a threat. Would you agree with that? I just want to remind you about many hostile actions from Russia. For example, recently a Russian cruiser was detected just 30 miles from the British coast. The Royal Navy had to intervene by sending the destroyer HMS Defender.
Liam Fox: Never mind the cruiser, Russia’s nuclear arsenal is still pointed at us, in case anyone has forgotten. That is not the action of a friendly state.
Robert Czulda: If you read NATO’s official statements, its policy is that Russia is not an enemy but a friend, or even an ally. But don’t you think that Russian actions are in strong opposition to such wishful thinking?
Liam Fox: Russia is a potential friend and is a potential enemy. Which way they go is largely dependent on how Russian internal politics moves. And we need to be – I keep going back to this example – we need to be very aware of this Estonian experience. And if you stand back and think with cold logic, you would say that Russia ought to perceive its security threats as coming from its unstable fundamentalist Islamic south and from China’s increased militarization in the east, and yet Russia maintains its posture that NATO is its biggest threat, because it’s the political support upon which a great deal of its military and political infrastructure is based.
Robert Czulda: Do you think it’s possible for Russia to join NATO?
Liam Fox: No.
Robert Czulda: Why? I know this question might sound strange but there are many well-respected experts who are keen advocates of that solution.
Liam Fox: Because NATO is not simply a military alliance. It is also a political alliance based upon values. Whenever Russia is able to exhibit the same freedom that fundamentally underpins the values of NATO, then you could start to consider the question. I see no sign in the foreseeable future of Russia remotely reflecting the same values in terms of democracy, in rule of law, in the concept of rights that we have in the democratic West.
By Academic Security Forum, in Afganistan