In his first keynote foreign affairs speech, delivered to Chatham House, Nick Clegg lays out his terms for international intervention. He sets out his vision for greater international co-operation and calls for Britain to be a force of both peace and justice in the world. 

This is part one of Nick Clegg's speech. Click here to read part two.

Introduction

Thank you all for being here today. It is a great pleasure to be in Chatham House.

Under the leadership of DeAnne Julius and Robin Niblett you continue to provide an invaluable source of expertise, information and clarity on the important issues facing our world today.

Europe

Today, there are few issues in need of greater clarity than the future of the Lisbon Treaty. There is a strong sense of déjà vu about the Irish No vote.

Like the French and Dutch voters who rejected the draft EU Constitution in 2005, Irish voters have given few pointers to EU leaders on how to decipher their grievances – they are disparate and point in several different directions at once.

But this is no excuse for continuing on regardless. That would only confirm in the minds of millions that the EU is ploughing ahead without any concern for the reservations of European citizens.

Pro-Europeans – above all others – must not take this path. Of course I am disappointed that Lisbon was rejected by the Irish people.

The provisions of the Lisbon Treaty were the right prescription for making an enlarged EU fit for purpose to tackle cross-border crime, climate change and security.

But if you ask me what is more important at this stage: a strong sense of support and legitimacy for Europe, or the minor reforms of the Lisbon Treaty, I have to come down in favour of the former.

If that means we lose Lisbon and have to return to essential reforms further down the line – then so be it.

Of course the dilemmas which the Lisbon Treaty sought to address will not disappear, regardless of how much the Conservatives and others would wish it away.

The EU can cope under the terms of the Nice Treaty, for sure, but issues related to the efficiency and accountability of a much enlarged EU club will not simply disappear. Equally, however, they must not become an abiding obsession for European eliltes.

The European Union has been immersed in non stop institutional change for a decade and a half as one Inter Governmental Conference and one Treaty has given way to the next.

We mustn’t allow the best to become the enemy of the good. Of course the decision making procedures of the EU could be further improved.

But at some point the incessant focus on how the EU makes decisions must give way to a focus on what decisions are taken, and why. Perpetual wrangling about the means by which the EU decides things has obscured the ends for which the EU was created in the first place.

The European Union is too important to get lost in its own internal battles and debates for several more months on end.

The Laeken Declaration was based on a premise that Europe could move closer to its citizens through institutional reform.

That thesis has not exactly been vindicated in recent years. It is now clear that for the EU to have meaning, legitimacy and resonance with its voters, it will have to win respect through its actions, through its relevance to daily lives. It is time to stop tinkering with the machine and put it to work.

This is not an endorsement of the view that the Irish have struck a blow for “the real people over the Eurocrats”. This is a distortion perpetuated by anti-Europeans.

It is not the European Commission or even the European Parliament that draws up treaties. It is democratically elected national governments. They sign the treaties and national parliaments approve them.

The legitimacy gap is not just between Brussels and London or Brussels and Dublin. It is also a gap between the public and the political class. That is a challenge for everyone, regardless of their views on Lisbon.

It is, I believe, part of a wider malaise and concern amongst the public over globalisation and the shifting of power. Instead of being a victim of that malaise over globalisation, the European Union has to prove that it is a crucial part of our response.

Pro-Europeans need to show how the EU has evolved into the world’s most sophisticated response to globalisation.

In a fast-changing world of newly emerging powers, the European Union is our best chance for economic prosperity, and safety in numbers, at a time of profound global change.

So whilst I would not seek to second guess what the Irish Government may come up with between now and October when, according to the conclusions of last week’s EU Summit, a decision must be taken on Lisbon - I nonetheless believe if there is no obvious or simple solution, it would be better to let the Treaty drop.

The greatest danger to the European cause is not the loss of the Lisbon Treaty itself, but a prolonged period of political uncertainty and legal wrangling.

Such uncertainty would deal a further hammer blow against what little is left of pro European sentiment in this country.

Globalisation

Globalisation requires us to formulate a system of supranational governance capable of controlling forces which escape the limitations of the nation state.

And it is only liberalism, with its accommodation of the market economics that drive globalisation and the internationalist politics needed to regulate it, that can guide us.

That is why the Liberal Democrats have for so long championed international cooperation through the EU, UN and other bodies. Internationalism is one of the fundamental tenets of what it is to be a liberal.

And it is also in liberalism – in it’s belief in the importance of individual rights – that we can trace the roots of a belief in a higher justice that transcends the interests of the individual nation state.

It was Gladstone who first impressed upon us the belief that “the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, are as sacred as our own."

From this idea grew the founding principles of international humanitarian law, and the notion of intervention for reasons other than national interest.

Yet, whilst this doctrine may have antecedents which stretch back deep into British political history, we are still struggling to work out how it can work in practice.

What are the limits of national sovereignty?

What rights do others have to intervene in the internal affairs of another nation?

When is a war just?

Can moral universalism serve as a guide for military intervention, or does it have no place in the realpolitik of international affairs?

It’s these debates I want to focus on today. I want to talk about the shape of conflict in today’s world, the shifting international responses and the role I believe Britain should seek to play in that context.

Changing Context

The norms and rules of international affairs are of course never set in stone. The post-Cold War world remains an uncertain place. Economic power is shifting from West to East.

We do not yet fully understand the consequences of this shift to a more multi-polar world. But it is clear that we have entered an era in which full-scale war between the world’s biggest states is unlikely.

The spread of democracy, international law, and economic interdependence have all played their role in ensuring that.

Armed conflict today exists primarily between smaller states, within states and as a consequence of extra-territorial actions, or terrorism.

Increasingly, today’s conflicts are – in the words of General Rupert Smith – “wars among the people”.

His argument that the world has undergone a fundamental shift from the “heavy metal” wars of the past is right, at least in part.

There will still be times where states – including developed western states – will go to war with a conventional army against a defined enemy.

As General Sir Richard Dannatt sagely observed in a recent speech to RUSI, “The man who looks ten years out and says he knows what the strategic situation will look like, is, frankly the Court Jester.”

We cannot rule out the possibility of a return to state on state war. But equally, in preparing for the unexpected war of tomorrow, we cannot risk losing the war of today. 

For our own sake, and for the sake of other populations, there is a greater need to intervene in conflicts that do not directly involve us. And to tackle international terrorist threats that might.

President Sarkozy sought to respond to these new realities last week.

He announced the biggest military shake-up in France since President de Gaulle withdrew from Nato more than forty years ago.

This kind of reconfiguration of security expenditure and capabilities is exactly what the UK has attempted, but struggled to achieve. We are currently ill-equipped to take on further significant challenges.

The Regular Army has a deficit of almost five thousand soldiers. Tour intervals are shortened and there remain critical shortfalls in key skills.

Liberal Democrats have long advocated an immediate, orderly withdrawal from Iraq. Our presence has long ceased to have any tangible benefits for the Iraqi people. Our forces are suffering by needlessly sustaining two operations on two fronts.

Withdrawal would mean freeing up airlift and armoured vehicle capability from Iraq to Afghanistan which would ease the pressure on operations there.

Our troops are doing a phenomenal job in Afghanistan. Wherever they serve, the British Armed Forces show bravery, commitment and professionalism. But they are not equipped as they should be.

Our troops should not be dying in Snatch Land Rovers. The tragedy and loss of lives is bad enough - but there is a strategic cost too.

This is an insurgency campaign. Lives lost are propaganda for the Taliban, intended to blunt our resolve. So not only does penny-pinching on vehicles cost precious lives, it also exacts a strategic price too.

Afghanistan is typical of a conflict in which civilian aid and development are fundamental to long-term success – but the agencies which drive them cannot operate on their own.

They have instead to be supported by the military – cooperation that pulls both sides of the civilian-military divide in new, difficult directions.

Earlier this month, the chief of the general staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, acknowledged that the primary future task of the British army will be to provide “military assistance, security and development”. This can only be right.

I welcome the Government’s recent announcement that more Royal Engineers would be sent to Afghanistan to work on development and reconstruction.

They know how to do the work, and they know how to train the locals to do it for themselves.

In my view the Engineers should be freed up to do more of this kind of work. If DfID are unable to operate, let us get the Army in to do quick-impact projects.

Afghanistan may be our best guide as to what future conflicts will look like. Fighting insurgents rather than armies, building states rather than seeking to destroy them, leading with civilian reconstruction rather than military domination alone, working with a patchwork of domestic and international military partners rather than alone, requiring a political commitment of years and decades rather than a victory declared overnight.

Failure in our mission there would be catastrophic. It would lead to an increase in terrorism, and more hard drugs on our streets. And it would lead to instability in the region and even greater suffering for the Afghans themselves.

I doubt there will ever be a neat outcome to our mission in Afghanistan. After all, it is a nation without a state, riven with tribal tensions. The best we can presently hope for is an approximate condition of security and stability.

And that might take many years, perhaps decades – something which the British Government has failed to explain to the British people.

At the moment, I do not believe that British public opinion is reconciled to the risks and likely duration of our mission in Afghanistan.

The failure of this Government to invest the political capital in explaining the reasons for our presence in Afghanistan to domestic audiences may well come back to haunt it if casualties continue to rise.

So the time has now come for a full foreign-policy led Strategic Defence Review. Britain has not conducted a Review for over ten years.

If we are to ensure that our military is prepared for the triple challenge of agile peacekeeping, humanitarian and counterinsurgency operations, then we must get serious about properly matching our aims, capabilities and resources.

We are still spending billions on a Cold War fighter jet programme. Yet we delay and dither over a desperately needed new fleet of vehicles for our forces on the ground.

That cannot be right. However, there is little point in changing our defence posture towards peacekeeping operations and “war amongst the people” if the political will and the public support is absent.

Will those countries stung by the bitter experience of Iraq show willing to engage in further conflicts that do not directly concern them?

In the post-Vietnam era the United States tended to shy clear of avoidable military commitments. There is every reason to believe that we are entering a similar period now.

The American public is deeply disillusioned by its recent experience in Iraq. They are likely to have little appetite for further foreign wars or intervention. And their leaders know it.

The next US President may well be tempted back into the shell of American isolationism as a means to winning votes.

And whatever your view on American foreign policy, it remains the case that much of the world looks to the only superpower for a lead on military matters, including humanitarian intervention.

So the question for Britain is this:

In a globalised world in which traditional state-to-state conflict is giving way to dispersed conflict within states and with stateless groups; in which America`s willingness to act as the world`s policeman will wane; in which defence spending priorities will have to shift dramatically; in which economic and political power is moving fast towards Asia; and in which multilateral institutions like the UN are stymied by national rivalries:

What should Britain’s role be in contributing towards a new world order?