Oral evidence: Russia: implications for UK defence and security, HC 763Tuesday 8 March 2016

Oral evidence, 8 March 2016.

Witnesses

Dr Victor Madeira, Senior Fellow, the Institute for Statecraft, and Dr Andrew Monaghan, Senior Research Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House, gave evidence.

Chair

I thank both our panellists for waiting patiently. We will protect as much of your time as we can. I aim to finish at about quarter past 1. Please introduce yourselves and say a word about your qualifications.

Dr Madeira

Thank you. I am Dr Victor Madeira. I am a senior fellow with the Institute for Statecraft in London, and until recently I was a visiting research fellow with the Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford. I have done, on and off, 15 years of work looking at Russian security and intelligence, specifically their use of subversion and active measures and how they have used that in a multitude of environments throughout history.

Dr Monaghan

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the invitation to come and speak; it is an honour. My name is Andrew Monaghan. I am the senior research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. I am also a visiting fellow at the Changing Character of War Programme based at Pembroke College, Oxford. My background includes time spent at the UK Defence Academy and, subsequently, leading the Russia-related research for the NATO Defence College in Rome.

Chair

Thank you. To start, Jim Shannon.

Jim Shannon

I have a couple of quick questions. The first is about the Russian perception of the United Kingdom. Where do the weaknesses lie in terms of military capability? I would make two points on that. Number one is the ability of the United Kingdom and NATO to respond to conventional warfare, in particular tank warfare. The second is to do with chemical and biological warfare. I understand that Russia has put great emphasis in their training of soldiers and troops on biological and chemical warfare, whereas we have not. Indeed, I understand that the USA and the UK forces do not even do that training per year, never mind over a period of time. First, in terms of military capability, where are we?

Dr Madeira

On the military side, I would defer to Dr Sutyagin, because that is not my main area of research. In terms of perceptions of weakness, certainly as far as the UK is concerned, some of the speakers on the previous panel alluded to that. From Moscow’s point of view, the main thing is the willingness to fight, I would say. This is something that I will touch on later on, but we are dealing with a leadership that comes from a particular generation and background, and therefore has a particular outlook. I cannot stress enough the importance of understanding the notion of mindset, not just the Russian mindset but, in many ways even more importantly, our own mindset. By that, I mean collectively in the West and, in this case, the UK. We are dealing with a state that is not conventional in any way, shape or form. We are dealing with a state that is run by the security and intelligence services. With that, on top of the traditional Russian mindset, you have an overlay of the Russian security and intelligence services. Their world view—that has been touched on beforehand—is very particular. The FSB, which President Putin headed before he became Prime Minister and then later President, is a counter-intelligence service, with again, a very particular mindset and world view. To go back to your question, they will see the UK in terms of weaknesses: our willingness to fight, first and foremost; and in terms of perceptions of threat, which is reflected in the late 2015 National Security Strategy. The very first threat that they list is the activities of foreign special services. That is the Russian term for Western security and intelligence services. Certainly, the political willingness to fight in the broadest sense is their main assessment. Secondly—it was again touched on earlier—is our addiction to money in the broadest sense. We are successful strong economies in the West, and they know that our standards of living depend on maintaining that flow of money through our financial and economic systems. Again, that is something they very much look to exploit and have done so since early Soviet times.

Dr Monaghan

I am not qualified to speak on the chemical and weapons front, I must admit, but the conventional point is a very important one because we have focused almost exclusively on hybrid warfare or multi-dimensional warfare, which is warfare and doesn’t need the adjective in front of it. It seems to me that one the things that Russian thinkers may have observed over the last 15 years is our preoccupation with light vehicles and light intensity combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are certainly shortfalls when comparing that with events in Ukraine and thinking of, for instance, the battles at Ilovaisk, Debaltseve and Donbass airport and conventional power being deployed in Syria—the actual war-fighting ability. There are certain gaps opening up in terms of our perceptions of what warfare is and what it means. It would strike me also that in the UK, but also more broadly in NATO member states, there is a casualty aversion both for our own side, but also for infliction. So the idea of warfare actually leading to deaths is something that we have broadly tried to avoid for much of the recent era. Clearly, what is happening in Syria at the moment demonstrates that warfare cannot be conducted in that way. An addendum to that is that Russian military thinkers and officials—senior generals—have spoken about the US global strike idea: the ability to knock an opponent out anywhere on the planet almost immediately. We talk about the UK capability, which is one question, but if we also talk about NATO and the US, one of the things the Russians are planning to have to deal with is this global strike question. Much of the Russian discussion about NATO, UK allies and the US is the sense of war by humanitarian intervention. Warfare is not really caused by tanks and conventional weapons being the opening salvo. It is a question of collapsing a regime from within and then intervening. One of the primary concerns that I think is worth reflecting on in Moscow is that of colour resolution and war by regime change.

Jim Shannon

To get a slightly different tangent, the Litvinenko inquiry had an impact on the Russian perception of how long it takes the British to reply and respond. The great worry I had, and probably others in this Committee had, was that it took far too long to respond. What is your feeling about how Russia sees the inquiry and how long it took to get us where we are? Perhaps as a follow on from that, how do we remedy the weaknesses that Russia perhaps sees in how long it took us to respond or in the response and what it meant?

Dr Monaghan

There are two immediate answers to that. The main problem in the most recent response is that a substantial report was written off with one word: the use of “probably”. It was a substantive report but that word “probably” was used as a means of flashing it. That is one way of trying to address that. The second is that it is of course worth bearing in mind that the response to Litvinenko took place immediately. There were immediate responses to the murder on British streets of Alexander Litvinenko. However, they have subsequently stalled in terms of getting the Russians to extradite someone from Russia in contravention of the Russian constitution, so there were limits to what could be done.

Dr Madeira

If I may pick up on Andrew’s point, something that came up some years ago was an interesting legal point. I have to stress that I have no legal background whatever, but the notion in Russia’s statements was to the effect that, according to its constitution, it could not extradite its own citizens, as Andrew rightly said. But there are precedents for the extradition of dual nationals: Russian nationals holding another nationality. Again, this is something that Dr Lo mentioned earlier. Andrei Soldatov wrote a book some years ago detailing that to a great extent. For observers of Russian affairs like me, it was always a bit perplexing that the UK or the international community did not press that point. Certainly, people with a legal background did not press that point further. Perhaps they did in private, but certainly there was nothing that I saw in public. In terms of Litvinenko, weaknesses in responding, the timeline and so on, as, again, Andrew rightly says, there were immediate responses. Perhaps the main weakness that I saw from the British side was the reluctance, or at least the apparent reluctance, to take a stronger line in terms of presenting the case, presenting the evidence, and pursuing certain individuals who were alleged to have been involved in the assassination, before they were elected to office—in particular, Mr Lugovoy, who became a Duma deputy and therefore had immunity from any prosecution. That would have been the most obvious one to me.

Dr Monaghan

Is it worth adding, just as a footnote, that UK-Russia relations have not recovered from this? While there has been an economic relationship and while there have been perhaps some flawed responses, my understanding is that quite a lot of partnership measures and co-operative measures were cut off instantly and, indeed, have not been resuscitated in any substantive form. This happened a decade ago. The UK-Russia political relationship has suffered significantly since then. It is difficult to say that this has been pursued to its fullest extent on the one hand, but at the same time the ramifications are clear. The UK has adopted a certain position and, despite certain attempts to revive the relationship at different times, it suffers the Litvinenko iceberg every time you try to resuscitate your relationship.

Mrs Moon

Perhaps the Defence Select Committee’s visit to Russia will put things back into—

Dr Monaghan

Well, indeed. I wish you luck with that.

Mrs Moon

Thank you. We have been told that Russia views its nuclear capability as an integrated, viable and usable method of warfare, particularly for de-escalation. There’s the threat: “We’ll use it”; therefore, we’ll back off. What is your view?

Dr Madeira

Well, it’s doctrinal. It is very much how they see it. As you rightly say, it is a way of de-escalating. Again, I have to stress that I don’t have the military expertise that perhaps Dr Sutyagin has. Russia’s strength conventionally was superior to NATO’s throughout the cold war and remains so to this day, in every sense: manpower, equipment numbers and so on. But of course, technologically, they are inferior in some key respects. Doctrinally, how they use nuclear weapons is designed to de-escalate the conventional conflict, but also to create a buffer. They will be able then to control, reassert or gain control over that area and push back the opponent. That is very different from how the West or NATO fights. Again, I have to stress that from a military point of view, I am not fully familiar with NATO doctrine, but my understanding is that it is very different. Conventional strikes are first, and nuclear weapons tend to be seen more as a last resort. Again, this goes back to themes that emerged earlier in the day. Fundamentally, what we are talking about is two very different ways of thinking, both about themselves as a nation and about the world today. How the Russians see themselves and see their place in the world is very different from how we in the West see ourselves and our place in the world. There are fundamental—I use the term “ideological” with a lower case i—ideological differences. Andrew and I and other colleagues have had this conversation over a number of years. Are we in a new cold war? Is there genuinely a new ideological conflict? My personal view is that there is an ideological conflict, but not in the traditional way we would have understood it, certainly during cold war days. It is no longer about capitalism versus communism; it is forms of economic management, if you want to put it that way. What we now have fundamentally is a clash of values and beliefs in the 21st century. Our colleagues mentioned earlier that anything that gets the job done is what will be used—absolutely right, but what we have fundamentally is Russia portraying itself as the last remaining bastion of true Christian, conservative, family, faith-based values. The narrative they are putting out is that we in the West—collectively in the EU and North America as well—are in decline, are weak and are divided, and that multiculturalism is one of our greatest problems and weaknesses and so on. It is that unity of messaging that the Russian Government—the Russian state—is able to marshal that is so effective overseas and so pernicious, because it does penetrate the public mind. That is fundamentally how they are playing the game, and it is nothing new. What we have called hybrid warfare—in particular, after the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine—has been adapted, but in many ways it is very much what the Bolsheviks were doing right after the revolution, certainly throughout the 1920s and well into the 1930s. It is what they call “active measures”. We know what these methods are, by and large. We identified them during the cold war. We have the tools to deal with them: counter-intelligence, counter-subversion—

Chair

Counter-propaganda.

Dr Madeira

Counter-propaganda—but with the end of the cold war, a lot of that fell by the wayside. We had, of course, to focus on our own economies and our recovery. Unlike the Russians, who even in times of crisis maintain their long-term view—it is a long-term game—for us, the tyranny of the immediate trumps the necessity of the long term. That is one of the biggest challenges we face: to maintain our focus on the long term.

Dr Monaghan

I would agree with much of that. I would just like to add three points that are interrelated. The nuclear point is very important and prominent in what is going on, but it is just one part of warfare, and it is warfare that stretches from a nuclear exchange at the strategic level to having to deal with civil disobedience through regime change at the other. Those, I think, are connected in Russian thinking. Secondly, the nuclear discussion is very much part of the strategic deterrent debate in Moscow. At the heart of that is the question of the United States’ withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2002-03. It is therefore also rolled up with the question of the ballistic missile defence project that the United States is running, and also in NATO. So it is part of a longer-term question of how Russia and the US and Russia and NATO—and therefore, to a degree, Russia and the UK—disagree on international events. Within that, there is an aspect of thinking that is made explicit by the Russian leadership: concern about an international arms race. If the emphasis is often on arms here, I think now it should be on an arms race and the acquisition of materials. Mr Putin and numerous others have said that major international players are spending considerable amounts of money on modernising their armed forces. For the Russians, that means they have to do the same—a major reinvestment in their armed forces, which was touched upon earlier. It also means prioritising the strategic deterrent. Although we often hear—we rightly heard in the last panel about information war and the capacity to do that, but actually, what is No. 1 is modernising the strategic deterrent in Russia. It is a very important part of what is going on in Russian thinking, planning and procurement.

Mrs Moon

For the nuclear deterrent?

Dr Monaghan

For the nuclear deterrent, and also for the ability to cope with an evolving situation in which capabilities evolve and in which precision weapons have, in many ways, the same impact as weapons of mass destruction. Negotiations can remove weapons of mass destruction from the field, and therefore Russia’s ability to retain a strategic deterrent is undermined. It is bound up with a number of those aspects of how international affairs are seen on the one hand, but also with the question of deterrence from Russia.

Dr Madeira

If I can just add a brief thought to Andrew’s comment, I will quote very briefly from the latest Russian national security strategy. Andrew is absolutely right, in that the primacy of the strategic nuclear arsenal is unquestioned, but what is important to keep in mind as well is, as we have heard earlier, the overall package—this full-spectrum approach to ensuring strategic deterrence. This is one of the things when you look at Russia; Russians will generally tell you what they intend to do. How and when they do it—that’s the tough bit to get right. In the latest strategy, they say, “The strategic national defence goals are to be achieved within the framework of implementing military policy through strategic deterrence and the prevention of armed conflicts.” Nothing too unusual there. It goes on to say, “Inter-related political-military, military-technical, diplomatic, economic, informational and other measures are being developed and implemented, in order to ensure strategic deterrence and the prevention of armed conflicts. These measures are intended to prevent the use of armed force against Russia and to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” In other words, absolutely—the primacy of the nuclear arsenal—but they are stating very clearly that they are quite prepared to resort to a full spectrum of activities, up to and including the psychological realm: information operations. If that can ensure that no conflict takes place, they will always go for it. The nuclear arsenal is always a last resort—the big stick—but they are quite keen to develop, and we are seeing them develop, all sorts of other capabilities that, if they can, they will resort to first, to ensure armed conflict doesn’t break out.

Chair

I will have to ask people to be a bit more succinct—

Dr Madeira

Of course.

Chair

Because even with the extra time, we will not get through everything otherwise. Just on that point, though, you said about the nuclear option only being the last resort, but surely it is traditionally the Russian approach—I am not talking about the use of strategic nuclear weapons, but about the introduction of theatre and tactical nuclear weapons at a much earlier stage than western countries do.

Dr Madeira

Absolutely. I was referring specifically to the strategic nuclear arsenal. That will always be the last resort.

Chair

Okay.

Mrs Moon

Are you happy that NATO and the UK have got the right mechanisms and approaches to deal with Russia? And if not, what should we be doing? What’s missing?

Dr Madeira

Andrew?

Dr Monaghan

No, you.

Dr Madeira

Okay.

Dr Monaghan

Just passing the buck a little bit.

Mrs Moon

I am thinking in particular in relation to the nuclear capabilities.

Dr Madeira

I would have to defer to colleagues on that, because that’s not my area of expertise, I’m afraid.

Dr Monaghan

One point I would make is that NATO’s official position is that it cannot specifically work on conceptually deterring Russia, or thinking about a Russian-specific and explicitly Russian role in this, because it’s not NATO’s official position that Russia is a threat.

Mrs Moon

So that needs to change?

Dr Monaghan

Well, that would be up to NATO to discuss, it seems to me. If the member states are convinced of the fact that NATO poses a serious threat to the alliance and member states—

Chair

Russia.

Dr Monaghan

If they are convinced Russia poses a threat to the member states and the alliance, they will have to phrase their terminology explicitly and clearly. If they can’t come to that agreement, it’s an alliance. That’s the block.

Mrs Moon

And the UK?

Dr Monaghan

Well, member states—sorry?

Mrs Moon

Where is the UK’s weakness?

Dr Monaghan

The UK’s weakness, I think, is more broadly in terms of dealing with Russia that goes beyond the nuclear aspect, it seems to me. Our two weaknesses are our thinking about Russia and the equipment for dealing with those certain problems that Russia might pose, whether that’s in a conventional situation or more broadly in the nuclear situation. But the thinking is perhaps the most serious problem. We touched earlier on the question of too few people in the UK understanding Russia. Even if there is an increase in resources, the right questions have to be asked for those understanding Russia to come forward. It seems to me that in many ways we are behind the Russian curve on this, in two ways. A gentleman asked about what might happen in the Arctic. It’s already done; there is a strategic command established there. That is on the one hand. Secondly, actually we need to look a little bit beyond the immediate questions as they relate to us in terms of how Russia functions. Russia is not really thinking about hybrid warfare; Russia is thinking about mobilising the state. The primary concerns in Russia are actually domestic, not about us. Actually, it is worth pointing out that often we end up talking about the Russian state or the Russians. Well, who? Which ones? Let’s be more specific. Russia often doesn’t work very well; it is quite difficult to create power. This is why a certain sense of mobilisation is visible in Russian politics. By that, I mean emergency measures to prepare the state in case of international conflict, in case of a threat to Russia. These are the kinds of questions we will need to be thinking about in terms of how we go about establishing a relationship with Russia in terms of the capacities we need to look at. We are often looking at, fixed at, February 2014 and Crimea, for understandable reasons, but Russia has gone a very long way since then and our horizon now needs to be 2018, 2019, 2020—not February 2014.

Mrs Moon

Just very quickly, could you comment on how Russia would have viewed the BBC film about the British sitting in a war room and deciding whether to engage in nuclear deterrence? Would they have seen that as an official British line, or would they have just seen it as a piece of television drama?

Dr Monaghan

Well, actually, I happened to be in Moscow shortly after that programme was aired, and it wasn’t viewed terribly favourably.

Mrs Moon

In what way?

Dr Monaghan

In a number of ways. They didn’t think it was particularly realistic. They thought it was hyperbole. There were all sorts of insults thrown at it, actually; a fairly full array of insults, some of which I couldn’t say in such a public environment, because it would have to be struck from the record for rudery—a very negative impression.

Richard Benyon

Back in the days of the cold war, the cold war got hotter and colder at various points. This just feels like it’s getting hotter. Are we being too simplistic about this? Are we just trying to drag NATO to rearm, effectively, to increase its defence spending and its posture to deal with this resurgent threat, and not doing enough to de-escalate—to actually discuss and try and talk and think beyond Putin, perhaps, and think beyond the regime and all its faults, to think there is a country here, which we have got to find an accommodation with? That might require the West being big and creating demilitarised zones, if you like, and those sorts of things. Are we missing a trick? Or is that a sign of weakness, as far as Russia would be concerned?

Dr Madeira

A personal view: talking—always a good thing; jaw-jawing, and all that, being better than war-war. But we have got to understand how the Russians see the world at the moment. Actually, if I could go back, we hear a lot coming out of Moscow: “The West is doing ABC. Therefore, we must respond. We feel encircled. We have to act in our own self-defence.” No one in the public, generally, stops to ask themselves, given how little interest NATO seemed to have in Russia as a threat—not until after Crimea and Ukraine; it wasn’t until then that NATO really started taking the Russian issue seriously again, belatedly in my view: very few people seem to stop and think, and say to themselves, “Well, hang on, if the West is doing something, given that they didn’t have an interest in Russia before, surely they are only doing that because something has happened—Russia has done something.” For me, it is always difficult to accept the Russian line unquestioningly, because they didn’t seem to have any concerns going into various territories from the end of the cold war. Grozny, admittedly, was an internal issue, but still there were enormous amounts of civilian casualties in central Asia and other places. So when you have a series of interventions like that—a series of quite brutal interventions—high numbers of civilian casualties and the West repeatedly says nothing of much consequence, does nothing of much consequence, that inaction sends a message to Russia. That message has been, since the end of the cold war and with Chechnya wars one and two and then the Caucuses area, Georgia and Estonia: “You can do pretty much what you want. The West will say lots of nice things about the importance of human rights but not do much about it.” That is the message that is ultimately being sent not just to the Russians, but to those small countries. Dr Lo rightly mentioned them earlier. It is might makes right. The message is that Russia is the largest country in the world, and these small countries just have to toe the line, but try telling that to the Estonians, the Chechens, the Ingush, the Lithuanians or lots of other people. I am all for dialogue, but I am afraid that given what we are seeing at the moment and the mindset that we see, constant concessions will signal weakness to the current Russian leadership.

Dr Monaghan

I think that there is a certain way that we need to start thinking about Russia that will hopefully begin to overcome the sense of surprise. It seems to me that deterrence and dialogue are viewed as the core binary approach at the moment, but we are constantly being surprised by Russia because we are not really looking or paying attention. I remember David Miliband in 2008 calling the war against Georgia “a rude awakening”, and then in 2014 we heard the exact same terminology being used again. How many times do we need to be rudely awoken before this comes to our attention? We therefore need to begin to think in terms of the signals we are sending to Russia and the signals they are sending to us. I am not sure that that is the skill we have got at the moment. For instance, the SDSR published last year talked about the UK as the No. 1 soft power in the world and a number of other signals that we were sending, and that would translate to Russia as the No. 1 “colour revolution” power and that will make dialogue quite difficult. Equally, when the United Kingdom says that we want to invest in, support, develop and encourage the current international architecture, the Russians have made it very explicit that they disagree with that architecture. Do we know that we are getting into a disagreement with them on these terms? Do we understand that when we claim that there are common interests, they are not shared interests in terms of how the problem is defined, how it is dealt with practically and what the end solution might be? Until we have clarity on those questions, it will be difficult to do either dialogue or deterrence. My final point is that it is now presented as dialogue or deterrence. I remember during the cold war—if we must talk about the cold war; I think that is mistaken as we are in the 21st century—we did dialogue and deterrence, and they were done simultaneously. That was the core of NATO’s approach. Until we have a clear idea of with whom we are trying to establish a dialogue and what we want to achieve with them, dialogue will always be limited, but so is deterrence in that sense.

Richard Benyon

If the Chair will indulge me going slightly off-piste, I want to bring it back to intelligence. Do you see key differences between Russia and ourselves in the approaches to intelligence collation and usage? Do you think we have a significant and effective counter-intelligence network and mechanisms in respect of Russia? If not, what steps do you think we should be taking?

Dr Madeira

On the first issue of the collection, collation and dissemination of intelligence, our system—I keep saying “our”; obviously I am referring to the UK system—because it is much smaller, in many ways it is more effective. Small in this case certainly is beautiful. The Russian system—it is not unique to Russia by any means—still prizes the human over the technical. That is not to say that they are not very skilled technically, because they certainly are. The gentleman earlier asked a question about the cyber capability. What I would add to what my colleague said earlier is that the clear advantage that Russia has compared with most western countries is that they still retain the core Soviet strength in the STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They are producing an inordinate number of skilful engineers, technicians and mathematicians, and that feeds into the cyber-realm. From a collection and dissemination point of view, it is quite an unwieldy system and it is a system with a long history and tradition of bitter and very bloody rivalry. I stress again that President Putin comes from the FSB, which is part of the KGB, which of course is a successor to the early Cheka. The Cheka and the predecessor of Russian military intelligence—the GRU these days, but the Fourth Directorate earlier on—were the bitterest of enemies. I will put that in perspective because sometimes it is difficult to imagine.

Chair

We are going to have to move on a bit.

Dr Madeira

Of course. So, there is a divide there that clearly causes problems. We most certainly do note the second issue in terms of the counter-intelligence. Counter-intelligence functions across NATO were decimated after the cold war and certainly after 2001, understandably, because of the terrorism threat. It is important to keep in mind that, short of terrorist groups acquiring weapons of mass destruction, they will not pose any sort of strategic threat to the West, which includes to the UK. Because Russia, China and other countries like that do very much take a long view, their entire approach revolves around the use of counter-intelligence. Counter-intelligence is critical to the use of deception. This is very much how these countries operate. Strategic counter-intelligence functions are, in other words, not just having a counter-intelligence function within the agencies or even within Government. Because it is a full spectrum approach that Russia, China and other countries take, it is important to have a strategic counter-intelligence approach for the whole society, educating the public about potential threats.

Chair

I really must stop you at that point or we will not cover the ground. Andrew, is there anything you particularly want to say at this point?

Dr Monaghan

No, that is Victor’s question, not mine.

Chair

Very good. I will bring in Ruth Smeeth.

Ruth Smeeth

Very briefly, what could the Government be doing better in terms of our general posture towards Russia? Would a more aggressive posture be more effective?

Dr Monaghan

Actually, it would be good to see in the public domain that the Government were thinking about where they wanted to be with Russia in five years’ time or four years’ time. I choose four years’ time because that will be the end of the parliamentary term; but at the moment it is, as I mentioned earlier, reactive, reactive, reactive. This means that we are constantly surprised because it is the question of, “Where next?” Actually, I am not saying that we have to adopt an aggressive or a deterrent or a dialogue point. First, we need to work out where we want to be. Secondly, we need to begin to resource that. They are the key questions. Finally, we have tended to work on the basis that the Russians, at the end of the cold war, were going to become a liberal, democratic state and return to the western family of nations. So far, hopes on that front have probably been frustrated, if we could put it that way. That has been, nevertheless, the thrust of how our leadership has wanted to see Russia and where it is going. Perhaps a reappraisal would be worth conducting before we start to say, “Here are more resources. Here is a more aggressive approach.” We have responded to Russia by suddenly remembering it exists in February 2014, and that is a mistake.

Dr Madeira

If I may, very briefly, I would add two points to what Andrew said. First, clearly articulate our values and beliefs. What do we stand for? The reverse of the coin is, how far are we prepared to go to stand by and defend those beliefs and values? Send a clearer message. Once that line has been drawn—I do not mean that in a confrontational way—and people know where we stand, it is much easier for them to calibrate and say, “If we push that far, we know they are going to react.” The second point is that, yes, resources are key. But, even more importantly, it is about getting the right people with the right skills doing the right jobs. There is no point in having an accountant mending shoes. Resource is great, but make sure that we are getting the right people with the right skills doing the right jobs.

Mr Gray

On this question of posture, in the run-up to Warsaw, do I detect almost a split in NATO between those who say that Putin reacts well to an aggressive posture and therefore let’s position troops forward in Poland and elsewhere, and those who say that Putin would view that as being aggressive and we would be much better to be almost pacifist or take a dovelike posture? Is there a split? If so, which is right?

Dr Madeira

I would go back to my previous statement. If we articulate clearly to the Russians that NATO has been a defensive alliance from the outset—to the best of my knowledge, NATO still has a no-first-strike policy and that should be in neon lights. And it has been throughout history.

Mr Gray

Sorry, but messaging does not really have anything to do with it. What we are talking about is: do we want a NATO division in Poland? If we have a division deployed in Poland with equipment, does Putin view that as aggressive and therefore worth retaliating to, or as a clear message of intent, which will keep him in his box? Never mind messaging. Of course we have got to get that right, but it is a question of what we can do. If the Baltics say, “Send a NATO division to be permanently based here,” would that be a good or bad thing from the point of view of Putin’s psychology?

Dr Madeira

What Russia has tried to inject into international consciousness is that they should have a veto over what happens within NATO and EU countries. That is, personally, a red line. The moment we allow Russia to dictate what NATO decides to do within its own member states, what is the point of having NATO? Having said that, of course, I fully take your point on board. There is no desire to carry out any action that will antagonise Russia unnecessarily, but we are not talking about the same thing. Russia’s view very much at the moment is that anything that NATO does to ramp up its capabilities to respond to what Russia has done in Crimea and Ukraine is therefore a bad thing. I do not think that is necessarily the case.

Mr Gray

So an iron fist and a velvet glove with proper messaging attached to it.

Dr Madeira

Yes.

Dr Monaghan

Can I just say, can we please be careful when we start talking about Russia responding well to aggression? Nobody responds well to aggression. The Russians, in my interpretation, are actually in the midst of preparation for war—мобилизационной подготовки. That is a concern about war being foisted upon them. There are a number of disagreements, but Warsaw I think needs to be seen in that light. Any preparation of any discussion about an aggressive position towards Russia will incur a vivid response from the Russians—probably big exercising. They are worried. It was mentioned earlier how absurd it is that they might consider themselves to be surrounded, but publicly available maps, pointed by the Russian general staff, demonstrate where US and NATO forces are all around Russia. We can disagree with that because we are sitting in Portcullis House. But if you then put up an exercise before Warsaw called Operation Anaconda, that does not look terribly good in terms of delivering message. You then stamp on all of the chronic tensions between NATO and Russia: NATO enlargement; missile defence; Readiness Action Plan; Armed Forces in Poland; and so on, perhaps including further enhanced measures for partnership for other non-NATO member states. So please do not be surprised when the Russians respond to this by saying, “We don’t like it.” It is also an election year. There is already publicly visible and stated concern by the Russian leadership about western intervention to create a colour revolution at the time of the parliamentary elections in September. All of those things are coming together. I am not saying that NATO should not do certain things—absolutely, we should get our ship into order—but when we talk about being aggressive to Russia, calibrate it very carefully.

Mr Gray

Let me bring you back to calibration and messaging, if I may. First of all, I will ask you a question that you probably cannot answer, but it is interesting. In this context, what do you think that Russia makes, or would make, of this inquiry and its tone? I am sure that they are watching it on television at this moment, taking notes.

Dr Madeira

There is a gentleman here from the Russian embassy—[Hon. Members: “He’s gone.”]

Chair

James, we have recently lost the representative of the Russian embassy, whose presence in the audience is very welcome today, as it was at a previous hearing.

Mr Gray

Indeed so. The question is, what do you think that they think about the fact that we are examining these things, asking these questions and saying these things? What influence does even this little Committee have on that messaging relationship with Russia?

Dr Monaghan

You will find out when you go to Moscow. I would take a hard hat and be prepared for a robust discussion.

Chair

But isn’t the use of that word “robust” rather better than the use of the word “progressive”? Nobody on the NATO side wishes to take an aggressive stance towards Russia, but what many people wish to do on the NATO side—as has always been the case—is to take a robust stance, and that is something that traditionally and historically Russia has respected. Is that not the case, Dr Madeira?

Dr Madeira

Yes, absolutely. With the Russian mindset—I mean the popular mindset—you have to keep in mind a number of things. I will not go into the details, because I am very much aware that I have overrun in some of my answers, but geography, history and climate are key factors. All of those things shape the Russian mindset. They are a proud people and, as with anyone, they would expect to be respected, but, failing that, being feared will do as well. We see this throughout history. I would very much agree with Andrew and with your statement, Chair, that robust does not mean aggressive.

Mr Gray

Finally on this little section of messaging, robustness and all that, Russian propaganda clearly plays—always has done—a very significant role in their military operations. It is all part and parcel—perhaps all nations do that to some degree. Should we be doing more in terms of counter-propaganda?

Dr Madeira

Counter-propaganda?

Mr Gray

Yes.

Dr Madeira

Absolutely. The resources that we in the West have collectively thrown at the problem, even since Crimea and Ukraine, are minuscule compared with what Russia does officially and unofficially to the tune of—depending on whose figures you look at—annual budgets of anywhere from $600 million to over $1 billion. The Russians spend that just on the RTs, Sputniks and other outlets like this. But as Peter said earlier, we need to understand how the Russians go about doing this. Certainly, during the cold war, particular groups were targeted because it was felt that they could advance Soviet interests, but these days anything that is of use or of value will be used. The BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring are hugely helpful—

Chair

May I just interject at this moment, because it will save me asking what was going to be the last question after James? Do you consider that there is still a corpus of expertise on Russia in the United Kingdom? Do you think that it could be better used? If so, how? I have in mind, for example, various specialist organisations on Russia, such as within the military even, that were dismantled at the end of the cold war. After that, I will come back to you, James, for the final question, if you have anything further.

Mr Gray

I’m done.

Chair

You are done, okay. Thank you, James. In that case, we will leave it on this point.

Dr Madeira

We heard earlier that the capabilities lie far, far behind what we used to have—we in the West generally and certainly in the UK. It is a long-term process, as we have said before. Resources are not enough—it is not enough just to have resources to get more experts coming in. I would therefore say two things: make the best possible use of the Russia expertise that remains from cold war days, because there are a lot of people who for a number of reasons were let go, and there are plenty of them still around; and the UK Government ought to consider something similar to what the American Government have put in place, such as the Boren fellowships. Those are national security fellowships, as they call them, for anyone from undergraduates to post-doctoral students. They are paid tuition and stipends to go into area studies for critical areas and critical languages—including Russian, Mandarin, Japanese and so on—and they then agree to serve in government in whatever capacity, whether that is the State Department, the security and intelligence community or other parts of the American Government. I think that would be possibly one good way of remedying the gap in the shorter term.

Chair

Andrew, would you like to comment on the last few points, with special reference to how Britain could use its expertise in matters concerning Russia to help formulate perhaps a stronger and more robust but certainly not aggressive defence policy towards Russia?

Dr Monaghan

Thank you, Chair. You were quite right to point out that the word is “robust”. My response was to the words used on the occasion.

Chair

Indeed.

Dr Monaghan

I am not quite sure that counter-propaganda is quite the correct approach. First, we could do with winning the arguments from time to time about democracy, the enlargement of NATO and so on within our own country. If we are worried about Russian assistance for political groupings and so on, how about winning the actual argument, rather than trying to counter that and prevent it? Secondly, we could try to learn to remember what was done and when in the relationship with the Russians, so that we know some of the back story. It seems to me that if you go there, you may well end up being posed questions—“What about this? What about that?”—that will not have been on your radar. It often happens with our civil servants as well, particularly in NATO.

Mrs Moon

Perhaps you can give us a list of the things that we need to look at.

Dr Monaghan

If I could submit that subsequently, I will discuss with your colleagues about how that might happen.

Chair

Please do.

Dr Monaghan

It seems to me, as has been mentioned, that we need to relearn with whom we are dealing. We have not thought about the Russians for 25 years or so. Suddenly, we have woken up with Crimea, which was another rude awakening. That leads me to the final point, which is about the corpus of expertise. It is much reduced in certain circumstances and certain roles, but it does exist. It could be better used, that is true, but the substantive problem is that the expertise often briefs people on what is going to happen, but it hits a glass ceiling, because there is a great deal of mirror imaging going on. We say, “Well, the Russians are like us, because they want to be democratic and they want to be an international partner working with us,” regardless of the fact that the Russians have said, “Well, we actually do not agree with you.” We say, “They do not really mean that.” There is a lot of mirror imaging going on, saying, “The Russians would not do that in Crimea because we would not do it.” I know that that was going on in briefings in NATO. People were talking—it is public knowledge—about it with the Russo-Georgian war. It is also public knowledge that it happened in the energy disputes between Gazprom and Naftogaz of Ukraine in 2006 and 2009, yet people are constantly surprised, and that is because of this glass ceiling. Yes, the expertise can be better used, but it can only be better used if the right questions are posed of it on the one hand, or on the other the information goes up above that to shape the questions. Now, the final part—Chair, you are tailoring it towards—

Chair

It is about how to tailor it, so that it can have a more direct input to the formulation of a more effective British defence policy towards Russia, bearing in mind, for example, the fact that the one big difference between the cold war and the position we find ourselves in now is that whatever else the Russian Government and regime does that we do not like, they are not at least any longer subservient to a totalitarian ideology, with allies who were seduced by that in target countries all around the world.

Dr Monaghan

Well, the first and obvious point is to have discussions like this. The response to your question is: how will the Russians see it? It demonstrates that the Russians are a question of import and interest for the UK Parliament. That is an important step and one to be supported, so thank you for inviting me to speak.

Mr Gray

The Russians would welcome that and be pleased with that.

Dr Monaghan

So long as there is a degree of robust intellectual approach to the questions that are being discussed, yes, why not?

Chair

We are endeavouring to get some input from them, and it was a slight disappointment that the Russian ambassador turned down our invitation to come and give evidence directly.

Dr Monaghan

And I hope very much that you will receive something of a welcome when you go to Russia. I think it is exactly the right sort of thing to be trying to do. Also, you have taken a range of evidence from all sorts of different people to try to create a serious set of questions and answers, and that is important. It is not just, “The Russians are not being very nice.” That would not go down very well at all, in my view. The second point is that one of the problems with creating a network of expertise is people moving on within the system. There is a very quick turnover. Therefore, networks are not created between Government institutions on the one hand and the excellent expertise on the outside on the other. People turnover and do not hand on their contacts, and then when something happens, it is, “Who do I call? I do not know.” That is the second point that I would emphasise—trying to build some institutional memory and network that goes beyond the current system.

Chair

Thank you very much indeed. It has been a long session, but effectively it has been two sessions in one. We greatly value the contributions that both of you have made, as we do those of the earlier panel.

Russia

implications for UK defence and security, HC 763 31