RT HON DES BROWNE MP, MR ANDREW MATHEWSON AND MR HUGH POWELL

8 JANUARY 2008

  Q220 Chairman: Secretary of State, I will just make a comment which is basically this: that, if the UK's ambition is simply to make progress, however painfully slow it may be, then it might be seen as too bland an approach to something which needs a very hard-edged approach, so perhaps you would please bear in mind, in the answers to some of the questions that you will be asked about burden-sharing during the course of this evidence session, that other countries will be listening to what you say as we would hate it if they felt that we thought that everything was all right and that there was nothing further they needed to do because of a bland approach; I think that would be in the interests of the country. That is just a comment.

  Des Browne: I recognise that and I understand and have given evidence on a number of occasions, particularly about Afghanistan, before this Committee and I do not think I have ever made any bones about my position either here or in the House of Commons about my desire to see other countries stepping up their play, sharing their fair share of the burden and deploying those forces that they can, but at the end of the day there has to be a degree of realism about what can be achieved and I think we have made significant progress. For example, I pray in aid the transformation that there has been of the forces of both Denmark and the Netherlands and the change from effectively a peace-keeping force to now a war-fighting force of Canada which is a very valued NATO ally. There have been significant achievements and we are at the moment, I think, seeing progress under the new leadership in France and a level of commitment, including the potential deployment of forces to the south and a quite important military commitment to the south of Afghanistan, so progress is being made and one should not underestimate that. I merely make the point that it is important to secure, and build on, the success that we have already achieved, and maintain it, in the north and west of Afghanistan and forces will be needed to be able to do that, and forces have suffered casualties in the north-west and in Kabul. There is a practice on the part of the Taliban, as we know, in that, where they are over-matched, they seek what they think are softer targets.

  Q221  Mr Crausby: In our last evidence session, we were told that, although there are certain capability shortfalls, the real issue that faces NATO is one of political will in the sense that current NATO operations are almost discretionary for some nations, that they are not wars of national survival and it is a pick-and-mix issue for some people. Now, is there anything that the UK can do to address what I see as a pretty important issue as far as the future of NATO is concerned?

  Des Browne: I think the political will of our allies is expressed in a number of different ways. For a start, the nature and scale of the defence budget of our allies is an expression of their political will and commitment. There is constant debate and encouragement on our part with allies to increase their investment, particularly in expeditionary capability. The political will also of our allies is expressed in whether they are prepared, once they have those capabilities, to deploy them, and we have seen that and we have to recognise, as we have before, that our allies live in different political environments from us. Then there is of course the issue of caveats once they are deployed, which is another expression of political will. In every single one of these areas, with those allies who make the level of investment, who create and deploy the capability where there are difficulties and who do it without caveats, we seek to encourage those other allies to do the same, and indeed the Committee will be aware that those who are committed to Regional Command South meet regularly together now to share lessons and to reflect of course the command structure there at a political level across the nations that are involved and to speak with one voice in the Alliance when it meets in order to encourage others. I think that it has substantially been because of that that we have seen the increased support that the Netherlands has been able to get for us and indeed increasing numbers of countries, albeit that some of them have put small components into Helmand Province and otherwise in RC South, and now we are seeing some significant change, I think, in particular, in relation to the French who have quite a significant capability that would be effective were it deployed. Of course, these countries deploy some of their capabilities in other places which are difficult and dangerous, for example, the Lebanon and parts of Africa.

  Q222  Mr Crausby: Whilst caveats are really important, it is quite an emotional issue, it seems to me, the question of caveats. The real issue has got to be the willingness of a nation to commit itself to investing in defence. Is it not the case that the reluctance of some of these member nations to share the burden as a result of their lack of investment is in fact eventually leading to a completely different NATO that some European members see as almost pointless? The French seem, to me, at every opportunity to express the view that NATO is to some extent irrelevant these days and, whilst we should have the capability, they go down a different route than the NATO one.

  Des Browne: Did you say the French?

  Q223  Mr Crausby: Yes. Well, the Chairman and I recently attended a meeting in Italy where the French seemed, to me, to be saying that we should produce a European system of defence rather than the NATO one. The point I am really trying to make is that have we now not got a complete set of tiers in NATO, those who are prepared to invest and commit themselves and those who are really just sat on the sidelines of it all?

  Des Browne: I think what we are seeing is an organisation which is the best political military alliance the world has known transforming. The fact that it is doing it slower than some of us would wish is the reality, but it is transforming itself and changes are taking place. At the moment, the French are going through a very comprehensive policy review in relation to defence and we will need to wait and see what a manifest change in policy, and there will be a manifest change, I think, in policy from the present Government to the past Government, will mean in practice towards NATO, but certainly the leadership of that Government has made it perfectly clear that he wants to see two things. One of them, I accept, is that he wants to see more effective European defence, and we all want to see European countries having more effective capabilities in terms of defence, and he said in terms that he wants France to play its full part in NATO, but he said that there should be co-operation, not competition, between those two organisations. I cannot speak for all the French people whom you may have spoken to, but we will have to wait and see what that means as time goes on, but, since they are presently undertaking quite a significant review of the defence policy in France, we ought to see how that is reflected when it comes out. My view is that we are not increasingly seeing a two-tier NATO, although we were in danger, if we had not seen progress, of that being the eventual outcome, but increasingly we are seeing countries emerging transformed in the way in which they approach it, and I have given some examples already and I could give more. There are many countries which are making quite a significant contribution, and the Czech Republic, for example, in Helmand Province made a very important and significant contribution to our operations over last summer. It was a small number of very highly skilled forces, but they were exactly the right sort of forces for that environment, and there is an initiative which we are contributing to which will allow the Czechs to deploy helicopters into Helmand Province and to support us there. I think there may have been a danger at one stage, and I share the comments that it would be better if this change were taking place more quickly, but I think we need to recognise that the change is happening.

  Q224  Mr Crausby: It is argued by some that, with so many different national capabilities, different countries will inevitably be able to contribute different things, and some would argue that those who do not have troops in place should at least share the financial burden. Where do you stand on that?

  Des Browne: I think we have to get the balance and we have to do a number of things in relation to burden-sharing. We have to, one, ensure that we share the burden equitably and that is fundamental, but we also have to get the balance between burden-sharing and military effectiveness right and we have to recognise that countries are at different stages of their transformation than others. I have already given some examples of quite dramatic changes that have taken place as a consequence of the transformational effect of ISAF on certain countries and that process is ongoing, but we have to get that right, and then we have to get the balance between addressing the issues that we face in the operations at the moment and pragmatic solutions to them. Some of those pragmatic solutions might involve countries which at the moment do not have capabilities that would add, or contribute, significantly to what we need on the ground, for example, in more dangerous parts of Afghanistan making some additional financial contribution, but we ought not to get them to do that if that means that that is done at the cost of the transformation of their capabilities so that in the longer term we have deployable capability from them, so it is quite a difficult balance. When the Prime Minister talks about countries making a contribution in support of others who would have deployable capability, then I agree with that, and the Czech helicopters is a good example of that. We will ourselves contemplate making some contribution towards the strategic airlift of those helicopters that they will be deployed in Helmand and others, we hope, will make a contribution to making them deployable, but we need to still concentrate on ensuring that forces throughout the Alliance are transformed to be able to be deployed with the capabilities that are necessary to face the challenges of the modern world.

  Q225  Mr Crausby: But do you not accept that, once you allow certain rich countries in NATO to contribute financially as an alternative to putting troops in harm's way, that completely changes the whole nature of the Alliance?

  Des Browne: I think the difference between us is that I am not accepting that we should do this, that is, that we allow countries to make a contribution in a financial sense as an alternative. I am suggesting that we should still encourage and, in the context of the Alliance and its transformation, have those countries move along the process of increasingly having deployable forces, but, if they have not got them at the moment and they are willing to make a contribution to allow others who have potentially deployable forces or potentially deployable capabilities to get them capable of being deployed, then we should take advantage of that. We should take a pragmatic approach because Afghanistan is in fact going on at the moment.

  Q226  Mr Crausby: But it is not about deployable forces sometimes, it is about political will, is it not? I accept that, if the deployable forces are not there, then maybe the finance should be, but, when it is about political will and a country is capable, but does not want to put its troops in harm's way, I think it completely changes our relationship.

  Des Browne: If you looked at this whole challenge as being frozen in time and having a point of decision, then that would be right, but in fact this is a dynamic process and we are part of a sovereign alliance that is transforming. It is doing it slowly, but it is transforming and different countries are at different stages and, as long as progress is being made and the Alliance is being improved by that process, then we should encourage that process, but, equally well, we cannot change the political circumstances that generate the decision-making process in other countries. There are countries who have constitutions that are a hindrance to their deployment in certain circumstances and, in at least one of those, we helped to write the constitution. [4]

  Q227 Mr Jones: I would just like to come back to the point that David Crausby just asked. There is a big difference between not having the capability, therefore, not being able to deploy, and actually taking the decision. I accept that we are talking about various different constitutions, but it is actually having a political position that, "We will not do certain things in, for example, Afghanistan". If that is the case, how can NATO really survive, if it is like David Crausby has referred to as a pick-and-mix operation where you pick and choose what you actually want to do?

  Des Browne: I am agreeing if that was the static position and we were not making changes in the sense that people were modifying or removing caveats, as they have been, and that position was frozen in time, but it is not. There are a number of examples of countries which have significantly changed in what they do and what they are prepared to do, and Canada is an outstanding example of this and Denmark is.

  Q228  Mr Hancock: But there was a point in time, and you said there was not a point in time, when everyone was together, but there was a point in time and it was when all of the NATO countries signed up to take the responsibility of taking on the challenge of Afghanistan and it was a unanimous decision. Now, if this is the first time that NATO has been deployed in a war capability, then the second time when this situation arises, that point in time is going to be a much more difficult thing to achieve with the experience of what happened the last time, ie Afghanistan, so what is NATO going to do to ensure that there will be a future NATO engagement? In countries like Canada, as you must know as we know, the Canadian public are horrified at the consequences of their troop losses nearly equal to the UK's and certainly bigger than the UK's in size of deployment and the Canadian people are horrified that other countries have sat on the sidelines and simply paid literally blood money to avoid the consequences of seeing their troops in harm's way. What future is there for NATO if politically they all sign up for something where, after the event, they then implement a series of caveats and restrictions irrespective of their constitutions?

  Des Browne: Well, if I thought that that was a position that we could not affect and there was no evidence that we were affecting it, then I would agree with you, but there is evidence that we are affecting it. I am not coming here and tub-thumping about it, shouting about frustration and all the other words that people put to me about this, but that is because I believe that progressively we are winning this argument and there are clear indications that we are. The view expressed by the President of France about the willingness of his country to deploy forces into the southern part of Afghanistan is a clear signal, I think, of that change, but there are many others. Indeed, the Canadians find themselves in this current situation, but were substantially a peace-keeping force a comparatively short period of time ago.

  Q229  Mr Hancock: Most of the NATO countries, with the exception of four or five of them, have actually reduced defence expenditure. How are they ever going to have the capability to put the troops that are needed into a fighting capacity? You name the ones where they have increased expenditure specifically targeting that capability; they do not exist.

  Des Browne: But I think there are a significant number of countries who have troops and who have other capabilities in southern Afghanistan. We sometimes think it is just us and the US, but it is not, and some of them are small numbers, but, proportionate to the size of their armed forces, these are significant contributions.

  Q230  Willie Rennie: Do the general public in these countries understand our frustration about this? You must have people that look at the politics in the countries that we are talking about. Do they understand how frustrated we are and how much their inaction could affect the success of the deployment in Afghanistan?

  Des Browne: I shudder to put myself into the position of speaking for the general public of other nations; I would not even speak for the general public of the United Kingdom. The answer to that almost certainly is that some of them do, yes, but then I am not in a position to be able to quantify that.

  Q231  Willie Rennie: The approach that you take and other countries take who already contribute to Afghanistan could have an effect on that. Perhaps in these countries the general public should know about our frustration and, therefore, having a more tub-thumping approach actually might achieve that. I am just posing the question.

  Des Browne: People have to approach these issues in the way in which they think is most effective and, if there is an example of a more overt and challenging way of doing it and producing results, then I will be happy to follow that, but there is no other example. Can I just say to the Committee in short that I think the success of the Netherlands going through the political process that they went through, with the quite challenging political circumstances that they had as a government in getting a significant level of support for a continued commitment in the southern part of Afghanistan and attracting support from additional other countries who were not deployed to the south, is an indication of this dynamic and it is important. I believe passionately in the NATO Alliance, and I am not seeking by confrontation to break the NATO Alliance up, but I am seeking to build it up and to use the opportunities that are there, including the deployment of forces into Afghanistan and to transform that Alliance so that it is capable of meeting right across the board in a holistic sense the challenges of the 21st Century.

  Chairman: Secretary of State, for the avoidance of doubt, we have visited Canada and we have visited the Netherlands and we think that their troops are doing an absolutely outstanding job. We have visited Afghanistan and we have established that that is the case. We have also been impressed by many of the things that other countries who come in for criticism have done. For example, the Germans are needed in the north-eastern part of Afghanistan and they are doing an essential and very important job there, so we do accept that there have been real achievements and we would not want you to be under the impression that we thought differently.

  Q232  Linda Gilroy: I think I understand the situation you have described up to a point, that there are more countries transforming, that there are some who have transformed already and there are those that have set out on that path, but are you saying to the Committee that you feel that every partner in NATO who has signed up to ISAF, to being in Afghanistan, has actually started out on the path of doing that? There are more that are doing it, but are all of them doing it and are sufficient numbers of them doing it?

  Des Browne: I do not think I could say that they are all doing that, but I am confident that this process of transformation which is gaining support increasingly and is producing improved effect in capability will eventually persuade all of the allies in NATO to come along this route.

  Q233  Linda Gilroy: How long is "eventually"? The problem is, as we saw when we were out in Canada, that those that take certain steps forward in this direction, their public and the politics of it mean that they do not continue to get the political support to go on if others are not also stepping up appropriately to the mark.

  Des Browne: Well, Canada is in the process at the moment of having a commission look at their commitment to Afghanistan and to report, and shortly they will have a debate in Parliament and then a decision as to whether they will continue to commit to making a contribution in Afghanistan will be made. I hope that we will persuade Canada to continue to make a contribution and to continue to make that contribution where they presently do that, but that will be, at the end of the day, a decision for them, but I believe that they will come to the same conclusion that the Netherlands came to. I would just make this other point, that we have troops deployed in operational theatres, in one case, in the context of a NATO-led Alliance and, in the other, in Iraq in what has become known as the "coalition of the willing". I think it is instructive and important to recognise that increasingly, as politics changes the governments of countries, countries fail to continue to have that commitment to the coalition of the willing, but none of them, none of them has taken its troops out of Afghanistan, and I think that is an important aspect of political will and I think that is the importance of the Alliance. Italy is an outstandingly good example of that, but even Australia, which is beyond the NATO Alliance and in a partnership, has recently intimated a decision intending to withdraw its troops from Iraq, but reiterated its commitment to Afghanistan.

  Q234  Mr Jones: A number of the expert witnesses that we have had before us in this inquiry have said that Afghanistan is a make-or-break situation for NATO. Would you agree with that?

  Des Browne: I do not think that Afghanistan is make or break for NATO, but I think the ability of NATO to transform will depend on its continued relevance as an Alliance to its members, and I think the NATO and ISAF commitment to Afghanistan is a driver of that transformation.

  Q235  Mr Jones: One of the expert witnesses we had made it quite clear, and I think we have touched on it already, that the unwillingness of certain people to do certain things in Afghanistan will lead to tension. If they do not deliver in Afghanistan, it could obviously be seen as a major failure on behalf of NATO. How difficult are those tensions you have referred to about burden-sharing and others? You say you have made progress in terms of caveats and other things, but how confident are you that operationally on the ground not just the UK, but joint NATO forces can deliver what is actually needed?

  Des Browne: I think we need to see what has been achieved, and what has been achieved in the north and in the west and Kabul is very obvious to anyone who has visited Afghanistan over the last three or four years or thereabouts longer. I myself, in 18 months and regular visits to Afghanistan, have seen manifest progress in the city of Kabul and you can see it with your own eyes that this is a place which is improving. On my last visit to Afghanistan, I quite deliberately went beyond the three places that I regularly, normally visit, which are Kandahar, Helmand Province and Kabul, and I went to Herat where the Italians, the Spaniards and others have been responsible for sustaining, and building on, what security has been achieved there. I think you can see there that Herat is a vibrant city which takes significant advantage of its geolocation on the borders of Turkmenistan, Iran and indeed, although it could not be further away from the Pakistan border, most of the traffic goes over to Pakistan and sits on the Pakistan border as well in a sort of way, but it was very obvious to me, and I was able to move around in the centre of that city and its markets, which were very vibrant, quite freely, I could see that this was a place which was successful. However, I have to say that the Italians, who have responsibility for command, have the Spaniards deployed under their command who operate with a different set of caveats.

  Q236  Mr Jones: It sounds like a recipe for disaster.

  Des Browne: But it has not turned out to be a recipe for disaster, though you ought not to dismiss the potential risk and security problems that there are there.

  Q237  Mr Jones: And the temperaments of the two countries!

  Des Browne: The Italians have a way of doing these things and the Italian commander certainly seemed to me to be coping with it, but he described them to me and they seem to be restrictive, to say the least. I gave that example because that dynamic is increasingly evident there and even countries which come to this environment with caveats find themselves out-caveated by others and that dynamic is having an effect. The Alliance is very important and what it has achieved in Afghanistan is very important. We need to do what we can, in my view, to make it better, but it is the transformation of NATO that will determine whether it continues as a successful alliance, as it has been in the past, not particularly Afghanistan.

  Q238  Mr Jones: Well, I have been there three times in the last four years and I agree with you that progress has been made certainly in terms of Kabul. Is it the case, therefore, that NATO needs to do a bit more of a selling job of its actual good news stories that are coming out of Afghanistan and explaining what is actually being done rather than just relying on the snapshots we get from the media?

  Des Browne: I think the other point is that of course, as far as the international community and its commitment to Afghanistan is concerned, NATO is part of it. There is the United Nations, there are international financial institutions which have an interest in a presence there and there is increasingly an EU presence which is very welcome and complementary because it brings capabilities which NATO does not have and nor should it develop, but which relate to the development of the rule of law, of policing and of governance and other development issues, and there are NGOs there. I think there is a lack of understanding across the world of what the world is committed to doing in Afghanistan and what has been achieved. Part of the transformation of NATO is to improve its ability to be able to tell its story across the world, and you have already heard evidence, as I know from having read some of the transcripts of evidence of those charged with that responsibility coming to this institution and managing, I think that you were told, to have a meeting at which no MPs were present.

  Q239  Mr Holloway: I would like to echo the Chairman's comments about the performance of British and NATO troops, but, Secretary of State, do you think that we are winning in southern Afghanistan and, if we are or if we are not, how long do you think we will have to be there? Whilst we have good news possibly from the French, there is no doubt that the Dutch and the Canadians are wobbling, so how long, if we are measuring this in five years or ten years or decades, do you think the governments and the public of NATO countries will continue to bear this enormous cost in terms of life and also money, and are we being over-ambitious?

  Des Browne: I do not accept that the Dutch and the Canadians are wobbling. I think the Dutch went through a process which I think was entirely understandable. They have come out of it with quite a significant reinforced mandate, I think, across the politics of the Netherlands and I think that they have a commitment now and a level of support that could not be described as wobbling. The Canadians, who are there in very impressive numbers and effect, are going through a process which I think is perfectly understandable given the level of casualty that they have suffered and given the stage that they are at in terms of their transformation, and I am sure that they may well need to find support from other allies and others, but I am confident that they will come out of that process with a renewed commitment to southern Afghanistan. The principal question you asked is: are we winning? I think yes, we are, and clearly you know this, that at the tactical level we have been winning consistently, not just us, but others, over-matching the Taliban. This is not a question of body count, but inflicting quite significant attrition on them and also having, as we have had over the last 12 months, I think, some quite significant effect in degrading their command and control structure which is very important, but that of course is only part of a comprehensive approach that is necessary, and sustaining that tactically in districts or in provinces will be dependent upon us being able to build up governance and build up the other aspects of what a stable, secure state needs, and also it will be a function of how effective central government is. I believe that the international community and we, the United Kingdom, as I have said before, will have to make a long-term commitment. People always try to drag out of you numbers of years, but it will be a long-term commitment, although I do not think we will need to be war-fighting for all of that time.