THE policy of nuclear deterrence is “morally awesome to support”, the previous Bishop of Oxford Lord Harries said within the House of Lords last week — but he did so “with moral fear and spiritual trembling” and with deep misgivings about cyberwarfare.
He also quoted the late President Reagan: “A nuclear war can’t be won and mustn’t ever be fought.”
In the two-hour defence policy debate on Thursday of last week, Lord Harries, a member of the armed forces within the Nineteen Fifties — after Sandhurst and before theological college — said that such a policy “could be supported only in the assumption that it’s in principle fundamentally stable”. He said that “the moral principles which apply to the usage of all armed force are equally applicable in a nuclear age: I mean the principles of discrimination and proportion.”
He was equally concerned for diplomacy. “I think that the main threat for the time being isn’t the nuclear weapons of one other state, but their capability for cyberwarfare. Nuclear weapons aren’t any deterrent to a different country that has the capability to render our whole command and control system inoperative. Although I proceed to support our deterrence posture, with its nuclear component, my foremost concern is in relation to our ability to guard our own command and control structure and our capability to discourage other countries from disrupting it.”
Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat) referred to the “incredibly essential contribution” that Lord Harries had made. “Our nuclear posture was initially determined in a period of balance: the Cold War, when mutually assured destruction meant that it was unlikely that any side would use a nuclear weapon. They had their deterrent function. In the present world, we face not only state-based threats but threats from non-state actors; not only conventional threats but cyber and hybrid threats.”
She asked: “Who is banging the drum to cope with hybrid threats and cyber, and to make sure that we now have a completely fledged deterrent alongside our nuclear deterrent?”
In summing up for the Government, Lord Coaker, a defence minister, said: “Lord Harries was right to boost the problems of cyberwarfare, information and disinformation, and the resilience of the population, that are all essential matters. They are recent elements of war, especially cyberwarfare. . .
“With his knowledge of local government, my noble friend has far more experience than me within the resilience of the population and in civil emergencies and defence, which we could have to handle. When I look back in history, I see that the resilience of the British people has been immense once they have had to withstand the specter of attack, or have indeed been attacked. The whole area of cyberwarfare and data is essential.”
