- 3 months ago
World of Trouble: Ukraine cannot win against Russia, warns top British army chief Source: The Independent
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00:00The dodgy dossier first came up, saying don't worry, we'll find something.
00:05Don't worry, we'll find something.
00:07About that would justify what we were doing.
00:10I went back to say to my Jackson, this stinks.
00:12And a little girl wanted to hold my hand.
00:16And then she realized, as I realized, she didn't have any hands because they'd been chopped off.
00:21I said to myself, and those soldiers, we've got to do something about this.
00:24My view is that they would not win.
00:26Unless we were to go in with them, which we won't do because Ukraine is not an existential issue for us.
00:35Welcome to The World of Trouble with me, Sam Kiley and Field Marshal Lord David Richards.
00:41That's quite a stack of titles.
00:43We've known each other a long time and you have been in A World of Trouble.
00:48Probably true, Sam, but not in your league.
00:50Field Marshal, the Lord Richards of Hurst-Monceau.
00:55A long journey or a meteoric journey from when we met in, I think it was 1999, originally in Freetown.
01:05Can you describe to me why it was in the first place that you ended up in the army?
01:12Well, a lack of imagination, probably.
01:16By the way, I think everyone thought we were the same age because you were bald even then, Sam.
01:21And I had hair, I wasn't grey.
01:24But yeah, happy memories.
01:26I'm sure we'll come back to meeting you were the only representative of the media still in Freetown in 1999 when things were looking extremely bleak.
01:35I thought of other things, but I had seen that my brother, my cousin, my father, my uncle had all enjoyed their time and were, in the case of my brother, still enjoying it.
01:49And in the absence of a stronger calling, I thought, well, at least go in the army and see how I like it.
01:55I joined for three years and I ended up doing 42, lack of imagination, but mainly because I loved it, actually.
02:02I loved the soldiers, their humour, the gratification in leading people who trusted you and the reverse relationship.
02:14You know, my father said, if you love your soldiers, there's nothing they won't do for you.
02:19And he meant it in the proper sense.
02:22And I found that to be absolutely true.
02:25And they have to trust you, as you're saying, that your judgment is right.
02:30And as I got more senior, they'd like to be associated with someone who seems to be lucky.
02:37And it was Napoleon, wasn't it?
02:39He said, I'd rather have a lucky general than a skilled general.
02:43And I know what he meant.
02:44And probably there's something in that.
02:46I certainly fall into that category.
02:48I was very lucky a lot of the time.
02:51Well, you make your luck, surely.
02:52I mean, that's one of the, I mean, both of us probably, well, similar and different reasons are quite lucky to be alive.
03:00But equally, you do make your luck.
03:03I mean, if we look at this doing the right thing, when we met in Sierra Leone, you were a brigadier, which is a, what the Americans call a one star general.
03:14But it's not a high, it's not a high office.
03:17It's a, it's a, you're on the up, but it's not, you haven't got the ear of the prime minister as a brigadier.
03:23And yet, you sent troops ashore in Freetown, in West Africa, in this nation that was being destroyed by civil war with the rebels were in the town as I was, cutting people's hands off just a few hundred yards from where I was staying.
03:41I mean, you sent troops ashore and then made the argument for a military intervention to put an end to that chaos.
03:51Can you just describe how on earth you managed to push that through and why?
03:56Hmm, I sent, I think it was why it was a sense of right and wrong.
04:02Um, we had set ourselves up under Tony Blair and I was in principle supportive of it, uh, to do the right thing in the world.
04:11You know, you remember the ethical foreign policy and all that.
04:14Um, if ever there was a case for doing the right thing, it was in Sierra Leone where a bunch of, you know, uh, I wouldn't even describe them as rebels.
04:25They were thugs, murderous thugs that were exploiting the country's raw materials and the people mercilessly, as you said.
04:33Uh, you know, I remember, in fact, because you're slightly conflating two years.
04:37I had my neighbor.
04:38I went when we first met in 99, in January 99, and then went back in April 2000 to sort of be like finish it off.
04:46But, uh, when I, when we were there in 99, the rebels had been through, uh, I'm calling them the rebels, um, RUF, um, had been, uh, as far as the military hospital, uh, and the hills above Freetown.
05:00And I went to visit it, uh, at the request in part of Peter Penfold, who was the high commissioner, but he'd had to flee to Guinea Conakry.
05:08And I'd gone via Conakry, uh, because I, I arrived in Sierra Leone on our frigate, because you couldn't fly in.
05:15It was too dangerous.
05:16So I had to get there by ship.
05:17I don't know how you got in, by the way.
05:18But anyway, probably before that point, but good for you.
05:21I, um, I went ashore in a rubber dinghy with, uh, a small party of Royal Marines.
05:27And after a couple of days, um, of advising and assessing what was happening on behalf of the government of Sierra Leone, President Cabot, who was also in Conakry, by the way.
05:38Anyway, I went to the hospital, and a couple of families came to see me, and, uh, my soldiers, my Marines, sort of, looked at me.
05:47And one, I remember, as a young man, he couldn't be much more than about 18, 19, 20.
05:52Um, and he looked at me, and he went like that.
05:54He sort of nodded, um, and it drew my attention towards the family that were coming up to me.
05:59And a little girl, uh, wanted to hold my hand.
06:03And then she realized, as I realized, she didn't have any hands, because they'd been chopped off.
06:08And I was disgusted and appalled.
06:11I said to myself, and those soldiers, um, you know, if, we've got to do something about this.
06:16And, and, you know, at the time, there was not much we could do, but I did arrange for some help to go in.
06:21But when I went back in 2000, and my orders were simply to evacuate entitled persons, as, uh, it's known in the trade,
06:29and to leave Sierra Leone, uh, I said to myself, uh, I'm not going to do that.
06:34If I possibly can, I've got to do more.
06:37And my military judgment and instinct was that I would be able to do more.
06:42So, um, I was sent, dispatched over a weekend, which was Sleepy Hollow in the MOD and in Whitehall at the time.
06:49And I set things in motion that turned out to be the, the, the operation that we're discussing.
06:56But I hadn't got any orders.
06:58And so I came under a lot of pressure.
07:00And people wanted to, um, as I think I've told you before, one said, if you don't, if you're not careful, you're going to be chopped off at the knees.
07:08Watch out.
07:09That was a friend who was caught up in it and who tried to warn me.
07:12But I, I sensed, um, that if I, and you made the point, I didn't have a relationship, understandably, with the prime minister, that if I had been able to talk to Tony Blair, he probably would have endorsed what I was doing.
07:27And anyway, I didn't care I was going to do it.
07:29Um, because although I was sensibly ambitious, I, I had a higher calling for those few weeks.
07:36And, uh, uh, I, uh, my little team who were marvelous, a chap called Neil Salisbury and Mark Mangum, who, my chief of staff, um, he, they, I said, what do you think?
07:46And they said, you haven't got any orders to do this, Brigadier.
07:49I said, no, but I can't, we can't just leave, uh, and, and let the RUF rampage through.
07:56And Neil had been with me the year before and, and see the sort of things that you actually saw too, Sam.
08:01And, uh, I remember Neil say, you haven't got any orders, Brigadier, but we're with you.
08:07And that's, that's one reason I stayed in the army.
08:10The people like that, who were so loyal, that's, were determined to do the right thing.
08:14And there's a lot of them, believe me.
08:16That's a pretty high risk play to, to basically invade a country without the sanction of your own country with military force.
08:28You talk there about a higher calling, is it, was that a kind of a straightforward ethical issue?
08:35Is there a religious aspect to this?
08:37No, not religious, although I, I count myself as a Christian.
08:41I'm not, I'm not much of a church goer.
08:43No, I think, uh, it's, uh, what I like to think that most people in my position would have done the same thing.
08:51I don't know if that's true or not, but, you know,
08:53I'm, I'm sure there are plenty of other people in the army who would have, uh, aspired to do it.
08:59I mean, I've always been a little bit of a risk taker.
09:02And, uh, in a way, I think that's why having got away with it more times than I should have done,
09:06why I continued to sort of prosper as I got more senior,
09:10because I, I was also a lucky, lucky officer, lucky general, because I, I seemed to get away with it.
09:15I, I think it was, uh, an ethical thing, uh, it was a very human emotion.
09:21I was actually ordered there with quite a lot of resources in order to do the evacuation.
09:28So I didn't actually invade in the sense that you, uh, you suggest.
09:32I was sent there to do one thing and I turned it into another.
09:36And funnily enough, the tactics that I employed, uh, and were necessary to protect the, uh, a sort of line around through which the people we were evacuating would have to come
09:49were remarkably similar to what I did, uh, for a different purpose, which is to, uh, get at the RUF and push them back
09:57in order to free up the United Nations who were not, uh, excelling, uh, and were, were sort of paralyzed by the whole situation
10:04to allow them to get a grip of themselves and start doing what they were meant to be doing,
10:08which is how we were able to get out after six weeks without a single casualty.
10:13So I think it was that that, that, uh, motivated me and a lot of instinct, you know, this isn't right.
10:21If I do that, we can actually stop it.
10:23And it was mixed with military judgment born of many, many years of study of my profession.
10:29And I made, you know, but we sort of made it slightly more scientific through Neil Salisbury, um, that I, I did an analysis
10:37that showed to my satisfaction that if we did what we ended up, we would probably succeed.
10:44Of course, there were risks.
10:46And I, I, I, if I think if I'd lost a soldier doing it in that period when I had no orders still to do it,
10:52because it took about 10 days to get orders endorsing what I decided to do.
10:57And funnily enough, I, I used the media a lot, in particular Alan Little of the BBC who stayed out there
11:02and who reported very favorably and created the impression back in London that, uh, if they, uh, that, that we were central
11:11to what was happening, which was a stabilization of things in Sierra Leone.
11:15Um, and people back in London were saying, well, who's given you orders to do all that?
11:19And, uh, I remember, you know, Jeff Hoon was, was asked quite aggressively and, um, uh, who
11:26was the, uh, Robin Cook and, and other Peter Hayne had to answer quite, uh, serious, uh, suggestions
11:33in the House of Commons that I was stepping over a line.
11:36I hadn't been given what was happening and they sort of prevaricated in the way any politicians can
11:43until Taney Blair at some point was persuaded largely through the media, I have to say,
11:48because I had no direct link with him and I was up against obstacles between me and that level
11:53who didn't want me to succeed and then suggested that someone, uh, more senior should come and take my place.
12:00And it was got beyond a mere brigadier, you know, professional envy comes into play a lot
12:05in any profession, including sadly in the army, but none of that succeeded.
12:09And after six weeks, having stabilized the situation, having watched the United Nations
12:14at last get off their backsides and start protecting the population and taking a side,
12:21which they hadn't realized peculiarly, but they were there to protect a democratically elected president.
12:27And I remember going to the UN, uh, civilian and military leaders and saying,
12:32why aren't you doing this? I mean, oh, we don't have a mandate. I said, yes, you do. You're not
12:36an interpositionary force. You have a mandate to look after the democratic.
12:40Chapter seven mandate.
12:41A chapter, do you know, they didn't know they had a chapter seven mandate.
12:44I found it absolutely staggering. And yeah, I had to work with these people, so I bit my lip.
12:48But no, I mean, it was a wonderful thing to be part of and to be amongst a team that all identified
12:55with what we were trying to achieve and were part of, you like, a little conspiracy for about 10 days
13:02that kept it secret from certain key people in London. And then Tony Blair, and that's why he gets
13:09quite right, I think, gets some credit for this. I mean, sometimes he gets all the credit.
13:13But actually, as he'd be the first to admit on reflection, he didn't know what we were doing
13:19for about 10 days, but then endorsed it. And we got on and succeeded.
13:23So you bounced him using the media?
13:25In a way we did. And I think a common interest in doing the right thing.
13:30Because finally, if you asked me what else I might have done, after about five years,
13:33I thought the army, you know, it was Cold War. We weren't doing much for the Falklands and so on.
13:38And I thought, well, I think I'm going to be a war reporter. But I'm glad I stayed in the army.
13:44Yeah, you've got a much better pencil and a lot more titles than I have.
13:48Not very long after the success of a Sierra Leone intervention, Tony Blair was involved in,
13:58my words, cooking up the intelligence to prosecute an invasion of Iraq.
14:04Iraq. Just explain to me at that time what you were doing and whether or not you were comfortable
14:09with what was going on.
14:10Well, by then I was a major general and I was something called the assistant chief of the general
14:15staff, working to Mike Walker to begin with, but for most of my time to a wonderful officer
14:21called Mike Jackson, who wasn't easy in the morning because he liked the evenings before
14:26and, you know, was a party.
14:28You mean he was hungover?
14:29Yes, I learned not to go and see him before 10 or 11 in the morning if I could avoid it.
14:35Even then, there was an element to Mike that, you know, I would forgive him anything.
14:41But I got an earful once or twice if I got that wrong.
14:44But both he and I, and it was really him, were very suspicious of what you're talking about.
14:53And because what these political leaders and others don't realize is that, you know, we
14:58have our own intelligence and own judgment born of much longer experience, understanding
15:03of war and all the things that go to make a war and the risks of war and the inevitable
15:11casualties that one should anticipate.
15:14So funnily enough, a lot of generals are the biggest peaceniks of all time.
15:18I mean, I'm one of them, by the way, I would do anything to avoid war, particularly if it's
15:23unlikely to be successful.
15:26You know, the thought of large numbers of people dying in even for a good purpose, but
15:33knowing it's not going to work seems to me the most stupid thing possible to do, find
15:37a way around it.
15:37So we might come back to that.
15:40But yeah, I was as his assistant chief, I would represent Mike Jackson in about one in
15:47three or four chiefs of staff meetings where the chief of defense staff, who was a wonderful
15:54admiral called Mike Boyce, would report back from his meetings with the cabinet and with
16:00the prime minister.
16:01And I was there actually representing the army on behalf of Mike when the dodgy dossier
16:08first came up and I and others encouraged the chief of defense staff to query whether this
16:16was legal and what was the basis of this intelligence.
16:20I do remember one officer who I won't name saying, but was in on the intelligence side saying,
16:28don't worry, we'll find something to put, don't worry, we'll find something about that
16:34would justify what we were doing.
16:36And I went back to say to Mike Jackson, this stinks, because, you know, well, for all the
16:42implications that we can think of.
16:44And Mike Boyce, very nobly, because he was genuine, I don't use that word lightly, he was
16:48a very noble man.
16:50Mike Boyce, he, you'll know, then queried whether or not these orders were legal and wanted the
16:57attorney general to satisfy him that they were no easy thing to do, given the pressure that
17:03was on people.
17:04And the attorney general, and I can't second guess his judgment, said, yes, it is.
17:08And we got on and did what we then did.
17:11But yeah, it was a very uneasy couple of weeks whilst we waited the answer.
17:15And of course, Mike Boyce had upset the establishment and he was, his tour as CDS was shortened to
17:23only two years before his successor came in prematurely.
17:28So in short, you know, they, you, I mean, you must have seen a lot of the raw intelligence
17:33or whatever it's called, the intelligence product, the information, and you call it the
17:38dodgy dossier, and I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but that, you know, you and I
17:43spoke at the time and indicated that there were definite concerns over the veracity of
17:49what turned out to be a pack of lies.
17:53How does an establishment survive that?
17:57Well, look, the British establishment is very under pressure, will unite and can be very
18:05dangerous. And the instinct for most people is don't take on the establishment.
18:11I mean, if you upset them, and you're as a journalist and investigative type journalist,
18:15we'll know that. And indeed, I recommended you watch the hack on ITV, which is on at the
18:23moment, which brings this out rather than well, actually, how the establishment with Murdoch
18:28Press came together to resist what this chap was telling about the news of the world hacking
18:34scandal for months and months at vast expense. Now, whether it's true or not, I think an
18:41accurate portrayal of the risks one takes if you call out the establishment, whichever bit
18:49of it one's talking about. But don't take them on unless you're really prepared to have
18:54an uncomfortable life. Because they, and they may be right, by the way, Sam, they will think
19:00that their collective judgment and authority is more important than some of the unfortunate detail
19:07that might otherwise undermine it.
19:09The unfortunate detail being in the Iraq war, that they lied about the intelligence,
19:13they straightforward lied. And my own investigations and others have established that without
19:19a shadow of a doubt. And yet, we are in a position in which Tony Blair is being touted as a
19:25future governor for Gaza.
19:26It is ironic. I think what one's got to remember, and I sort of count myself as a strategist,
19:33and bemoan the fact that we are so short of statesmen and statecraft all around, particularly
19:41the Western world, there are all sorts of reasons one could discuss, they're very interested about
19:45why that is so. I think social media and political pressures mean that being a strategically
19:51minded statesman is very difficult in this day and age. So politics and the requirements
19:57of the immediate issues on their plates often supplant long term thinking. And it's, it is
20:04interesting that the more autocratic leaders who have been in power or of influence and learning
20:11their trade for 10s of years, if you look at people like President Putin and President Xi,
20:16and yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're brought up on this. And we have prime ministers
20:22and foreign secretaries who a few years before were attorney generals, and that's something
20:28quite big, quite good compared to most, or they were teachers, or, and however outstanding
20:33they were, a lot of them are journalists.
20:35There are a lot of journalists, but yeah, however good they are, they're not on the whole experience
20:42in all these things. And they're very prone to instinct and influence of those who appear
20:48authoritative and knowledgeable. And I think, in this case, Tony Blair, understandably put,
20:55you know, in his defense, obviously, you can offend himself, but put the relationship with
21:00the United States as his top priority. And then, you know, collectively, they engineered
21:07things to enable that to happen. And you'll remember that for a while, he was, you know,
21:13the toast of Washington and all that sort of thing. So I do understand why he did it. But I,
21:19without doubt, well, if you took that out of his record, actually, there's not much that went wrong,
21:24in my judgment, in his premiership.
21:26It's a pretty big thing. It's a very big thing. I wish he, I bet you anything, Sam,
21:31he wishes it hadn't happened. I'm not certain what else would have happened. We presumably
21:34would have been like Vietnam, we wouldn't have been involved. But we would have lost a lot
21:39of credit and influence within the beltway in particular. And that was a factor of the
21:46establishment as a whole. And those that were involved in the dossier, obviously felt was
21:52a bigger issue than what I think one or two genuinely thought that it was there, but they
21:58just hadn't found it. But the vast majority, they, those who were on the, they, no, no, we,
22:04we, we took, you know, these, the UN inspectors were very good men, we'd all met them as they came
22:11through London. And, you know, they briefed us on what they were doing, that they had no reason.
22:17And they were experts at finding things, as we've seen since in, say, Iran. And, you know,
22:22people on the inside were saying, look, Saddam Hussein is, is talking this up because he needs to be
22:28seen to be big in the Middle East. He hasn't got this stuff. He might have had, but he got rid of it
22:34rather like Gaddafi. And we accepted Gaddafi's claims. We still dumped on him, by the way.
22:40Well, we'll come to that. We'll come to that because we're running out of time. We've got a lot of
22:44history to get through. I mean, one of the interesting things, there are many interesting
22:47things about you. One of the coincidentally interesting things is that you've gone from
22:51Cold War warrior, through the humanitarian interventions, through Iraq and Afghanistan,
22:58and sort of have just, well, you hit retirement, but then came back as a field marshal during the
23:04Ukraine war. So you've gone from Cold War with Russia to what is now a warming war. But I want to
23:11get on to Afghanistan. So one of the interesting things, so Park, Iraq, I don't think we need to
23:17pick over what a catastrophe that was. And of course, you remained in the military through that
23:22period, serving your masters, as you're democratically obliged to do. Then we have
23:28Afghanistan, it goes well, very successful, special forces operations to depose the Taliban.
23:34I was at Tora Bora, where the SAS and Delta and others were scampering around, almost catching
23:41bin Laden. It goes off the boil for a while. Iraq is then invaded as an extraordinary distraction,
23:50in my view. But you come back in 2006, in a role that I don't think has been performed by a British
23:58general since the Second World War, in command of American soldiers at war?
24:03Well, at that level. At that level, yeah. We commanded a battalion, brigade level.
24:10So you come back as commander of ISAF, as it was then called.
24:13As we expanded round the whole of Afghanistan. While this was a Tony Blair, he agreed it with
24:21George Bush that they would focus on Iraq. And you're quite right about the distraction
24:25Iraq was. Probably terminal distraction, actually. And Tony Blair had a NATO summit in Istanbul,
24:32was persuaded. I don't think he had any hesitation, actually, that we would take on the leadership
24:39of Afghanistan through NATO. And they would focus on Iraq without getting out of Afghanistan.
24:46And little did I know that I was the man told to go and do it. Having pissed off the establishment
24:52quite a bit by then? I think they, despite Sierra Leone and my fight over cuts to defence, which
25:03is pissed off the Treasury. But they, if you like, they recognise, I'm only imagining how it might have
25:13happened. They recognised that actually I had by then quite probably unique at that stage,
25:17an operational record of success. And that if they needed this to work, they might as well give
25:23it to me if they didn't have another strong individual to do it. So I got the job. I was
25:28going to go to the command, the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps anyway. I didn't know that. But almost as I
25:34arrived, we were told we were going to have to lead the NATO ramp up in Afghanistan.
25:38You took over. And again, I happened to be there at the time, sometimes working alongside you where
25:46we made a film, but also under my own steam. And from the British perspective, from my analysis of
25:53it, and we discussed it at the time, it was a pretty much disaster. 2006 was a pretty much
25:57unmitigated disaster, which is an analysis I think you shared at the time, because you you work very
26:04hard to undo these Rourke's Drift type operations. And for listeners who haven't don't remember it,
26:13there were pockets of in forward operating bases in at least three locations of 70, 50, 80 men fighting
26:23under siege for months, frequently actually suffering from malnutrition. How on earth did that come about?
26:32Well, don't forget, I was the I was commanding the whole of the operation right across Afghanistan,
26:38what your focus on there is the British element of that operation in Helmand. So while I took a
26:46particular interest naturally in what the British were doing, I had lots of other things going on at
26:51the same time, not least a successful operation led by the Canadians in Kandahar province. So there
26:58were lots of other things going on. And God bless the Canadians for leading that and defeating them,
27:03which when you say that 2006 was a very bad year, which it was in some respects, actually,
27:13without what you're focused on in Helmand, it was a sort of draw score. The Taliban were kicked out of
27:20much of Kandahar. But did you run into institutional resistance to unwinding? Because it was you that
27:25basically said, in the case of a town, Musakala, where the where it was worse, you actually basically
27:31said, we need to negotiate a withdrawal, which is not quite a surrender, but it was a withdrawal.
27:35Well, look, I mean, in the case of Helmand and the British, I made the point strongly. And funnily
27:43enough, it was sort of accepted rather reluctantly back here, because it was seen as a military failure
27:51of kinds. I don't know how, because I was very annoyed about it. I didn't take responsibility for what was
28:00happening in the south and east of the country till 31st of July. I remember it. Yeah, it was already
28:05underway. It was already a cock up. It had already started. And they hadn't told me, which they bloody well
28:11should have done, because they knew I was about to take responsibility for what they were doing. And I was very
28:17angry when I went down there and said, what, you know, what the hell do you think you're doing? Not
28:20at least informing us and getting my sanction for what you were doing. But the brigadier in charge
28:28had decided that he would accede to Karzai, but also really the governor of Helmand's request to go
28:35into these villages. And he'd put them what they were known as platoon houses, what you've described
28:40earlier, which was a complete misnomer. They were little fortresses in the middle of hostile territory,
28:45bit like sort of cowboy and Indian type stories. We lost a lot of very good people, which was central
28:51to my thinking, quite, I think, unnecessarily, although at that level, the strength and you will
28:59have senses of common purpose was was humbling in the extreme. I mean, it was a British soldier at their
29:06best at that low level. But it was all forlorn. And I did say to the British initially in Afghanistan,
29:15but then up the chain to London, I said, look, this is not sensible tactics. Furthermore,
29:20you haven't asked me, I'm having to carry the can politically, both in Afghanistan, but also what
29:25the Pakistanis were getting very worried. And I had a quite a close relationship by then with
29:29President Musharraf. And I said, we need to negotiate. And soldiers, by the way, I think good
29:34soldiers recognize when diplomacy, if you like, should take precedence over military action.
29:42You know, wars and fighting is fine if you're winning. Quite clearly, we were on the back foot,
29:48we were losing people, and we were not succeeding in achieving the political goal, which was to
29:53pacify those very tribal and traditional areas of Afghanistan. My concept was build up Lashkar
30:01Gar, make that into the provincial capital. But they instead of doing that and letting that be seen as a
30:09beacon of hope and optimism by the local population, and then wanting more of that rather than what the
30:14Taliban were offering. So you worked over time to persuade people psychologically that what NATO
30:21and the government was offering was preferable. That went for nothing. They dispersed troops around,
30:27as you said, these platoon houses, and we lost the initiative and never regained it.
30:32So do you think, I mean, in a sense, I mean, at the end of your tour there as commander of NATO forces,
30:39did you know then, or did you sense then that the whole Afghan adventure was essentially hopeless? I
30:48mean, the language had changed from, we're going to shut down the ungoverned spaces where, which are
30:54exploited by terrorism, to we're losing men to send women to school and various other nebulous
31:02in democratic intents. Noble though they are, they're not worth sending young paratroopers to
31:08die over. When you got back, were you telling the system that it was daft?
31:13Yes. I mean, I caveated it that if you had put in sufficient resources, then and applied the right
31:21concepts like the Afghan development zone concept, we had other things like the policy action group,
31:27where for the first time, it shouldn't have been me as a soldier up in Kabul to introduce these
31:31things. For the first time, we had a mechanism to integrate Afghan and Western policy.
31:38Unbelievably, when I arrived, there was no such mechanism. And, you know, Karzai said,
31:42oh, yes, that's a good idea. Let's do that. And, you know,
31:46the country thanking a general civilian idea. Absolutely.
31:49Mad, what do you think the consequences of seeing the West essentially fail in Iraq and fail in
31:57Afghanistan have been for the rivals and enemies that we now face?
32:02Well, I think huge, without doubt. And I see that you think the same. I mean, just quickly going back to
32:09where it went wrong, because I think you put your finger on it, perhaps apparently inadvertently,
32:15but I know not that it went from a counter terror operation, which is broadly successful to something
32:21very muddled and confused and well intentioned, but very poorly resourced. And the concepts underpinning
32:29it were hopeless. I remember being told that the police responsibility for the police was that of
32:34the Germans and the Germans saw that it was all about traffic policing. They were going to have
32:39police crossroads and that would solve the hugely corrupt and inefficient police force. But I remember
32:45going back to Americans and commanding Americans at that level for the first time since the Second
32:52World War, which I hadn't really appreciated, but it was a great privilege to do this. And I'm
32:55very close to this day to the American army because they served me, even though they didn't always
33:00agree with me, they served me very loyally and very effectively at a certain level. The higher
33:06level, they weren't quite so good on, but tactically, you couldn't fault them. Before I was given command,
33:12I had to get Donald Rumsfeld's endorsement. And he came out to Kabul and General Carl Eikenbrey was my
33:19American counterpart. And the four of us sat in Eikenbrey's office. And Donald Rumsfeld, after a few
33:26niceties, then got to the point and he said, why is it deteriorating, General? And I said, with naively,
33:34not remembering that he'd just slayed someone who dared to suggest that we were not resourcing the
33:41operation. I said, well, I think we all made very noble promises to the Afghans, but we're just not
33:47resourcing them. And they're beginning to suss us out, Mr. Secretary. And he said, he looked at me
33:53without smiling. I don't agree, General. Move on. That was it. But funnily enough, I then got on
34:00rather well with him. But we went to see President Karzai. And generous, as hard as Americans are,
34:07they were all down one side. And Karzai put me down amongst his lot because he considered me
34:11his general, which I played up to, to some degree. And right in the middle of the conversation,
34:17Rumsfeld stopped saying whatever he was saying to Karzai. What do you think of General Richards,
34:22Mr. President? And I sort of, hang on, I'm here. Do you want this conversation in private?
34:28And Mr. President Karzai looked at me. Then he looked at Rumsfeld. I said, I like General Richards.
34:34And then getting into the swing of it, he said, what do you think of General Richards, Mr. Secretary?
34:39And Rumsfeld, I think, from my point of view, famously said, I like General Richards. He's only got
34:46one problem. He's a bit confused. Who's the three star and who's the five star?
34:50But that has been a confusion you've always had.
34:53Yeah, I mean, that, yes. That was the root of the problem. Initially, it was fine. It was an
35:01exemplary operation. Yeah, but it went bad.
35:04It went bad and it was ill-resourced and it went fluffy.
35:07But has it left us, us in the West, vulnerable?
35:10Yes, very. I mean, there's no doubt. Yeah, I think we've, we came out of it. I mean,
35:15part of the chaotic withdrawal, which was so ill-thought through and unnecessary, by the
35:20way, our potential friends saw how we dumped on people. President Ghani is a bit of an acquired
35:28taste, but he'd been told all sorts of things, made all sorts of problems, and suddenly they
35:31dumped on him. And so, you know, people in the, you know, in Africa generally and all
35:37around the world, they see these things. It wasn't only that we left. We left breaking so
35:42many promises and expectations not met. And that is not clever.
35:47Talking of broken promises, we promised to, among others, to protect the Ukraine from
35:52invasion by any other party. 2014, it was invaded. You were still in office, I think.
35:59No, I just left.
36:00You just left then. So, I mean, I don't want to go over the history of Ukraine because I
36:04want to get up to the, to the, the immediate analysis of what you think is going on now.
36:08But the West, as signatories to an agreement that said we would look after Ukraine and
36:14protect you in return for handing over your nuclear weapons, then refused, in the case
36:17of Britain, to even send lethal aid to help the Ukrainians fight the Russians out of their
36:22country. If you had been still in office, would you have been arguing for better and faster
36:30resourcing to Ukraine to see off the Russians?
36:32I'm slightly contrary on Ukraine because like you and so many of us, I mean, you know, one
36:40bit of me is, is hugely supportive and gets angry the way Ukraine has been let down. But
36:48I'm also very much a realist. I do not for one moment defend Russia, but I can explain it.
36:56I used to be the Soviet army instructor at the staff college, for example. And I've always had
37:02an interest in Russia partly because much of my professional life, you know, they were the people
37:06I was prepared having to have to be prepared to fight and probably die fighting if I go back to my time
37:13as a young troop commander in Germany. So there's a lot in your question that doesn't excuse it,
37:22because I would have been pushing to honor our obligations. But I'm also a practical realist.
37:27And the problem is, and here we have politicians who don't understand war and all that imply is
37:35implied in going to war, because beyond a knowledge, that's what you've got to be prepared to do.
37:41And of course, as an aside, in a way, what we have done in the case of Ukraine is encourage
37:48Ukraine to fight, but not give them the means to win. Well, it isn't that that that's not the
37:53same, though, surely as saying they can't win. It is given the right resources they could. Yes.
37:58Which is my view. Yes. My view is that they would not win. Couldn't win even with the right
38:04resources. Really? No, they haven't got the manpower unless we were to go in with them,
38:10which we won't do because Ukraine is not an existential issue for us. It clearly is for the
38:16Russians. By the way, you could say, don't be ridiculous. NATO is not a threat. That doesn't
38:20matter. We may seem to be a threat. The Russians view it as a threat. And actually, the Americans
38:25under the Monroe Doctrine would never allow China to get a foothold in Mexico, for example. So there's
38:31a certain hypocrisy in the West stance on this. But Russia sees NATO to its south, 500 kilometers south
38:41of Moscow. There's a huge wedge of NATO, which then is enemy forces. It's also, is it not an example of
38:49particularly in the case of Ukraine, successful, democratic, pro European Western nation with flat
38:56screen TVs and Gulf GTIs. And then the other side of the fence is little old ladies cooking and warming
39:01themselves on a single bar heater. But I mean, I know that because I've seen it. Yes. I mean,
39:05there are plenty of people in Ukraine who aren't as fortunate. So but you're confusing values and
39:13interests here, which is a very visit. Isn't Putin worried by Ukraine? Because yes, it NATO potentially
39:20having troops or forces there is and I spent enough time in Moscow. You've studied it. We can agree that
39:26Putin sees it as a threat. But it's also a threat because of the culture and political influence that it
39:33would exercise on his own authoritarian rule. Yes. If it was a success. So he has to mess it up.
39:38But the issue is, do you go to war over that? And we've decided because it's not an existential issue,
39:44we will not go to war. We are you can argue and I absolutely accept that we're in some sort of hybrid
39:49war. But that's not the same as a shooting war in which our soldiers are dying in large numbers.
39:54We don't have the resources. We don't have the resources. But but it wouldn't make sense.
39:58It's Ukraine, despite our attraction for all they've achieved and are, I think, genuine, you know,
40:05affections for so many Ukrainians. We've all met as a result. And you've been there is not success.
40:13There is arguably not. And I'm just still in this school is not in our vital national interest. And you
40:21don't go to war unless your vital national interests are imperiled. And then you go to war to win.
40:26Could we not could we not give them the means to win? Is there not an establishment fear,
40:32unintended consequences of collapsing the Russian army in Ukraine? I personally believe
40:38that it is entirely possible to do that with relatively limited resources having,
40:43you know, I mean, I'm not a general, I don't have your experience, but I've knocked around a few years.
40:47And I think and the Ukrainians clearly agree, because they are working at the logistics nodes,
40:53they're working at the command and control structures that the very demotivated Russian
40:59army can be folded up in Ukraine. And that whatever the consequences might be inside Russia,
41:04is there a fear of those consequences that has held Ukraine's so-called allies back? I mean,
41:12that the help they've been given has just extended the bleeding time. Yes, well, that's my point. How much
41:17longer is this going on? And if you're right, it would be another year or two at best before the
41:23results you've just anticipated actually happened. How many more tens of thousands of people are going
41:29to lose limbs or die in that process with no guarantee of success? Because you're, you know,
41:35the Russians, as I understand, I watch this and follow various of best intelligence one can get.
41:40I bet you are too, which is a lot on the net now. The Russians aren't losing. If anything,
41:48in a very traditional way, they are winning inverted commas. They're slowly pushing the Ukrainians back.
41:53Now, you might have an enormous loss, but they arguably and this is where the physics of war is a factor
42:00in these things that they can absorb them in a way the Ukrainians cannot. I mean, there's a lot of
42:06Ukrainians who don't want to fight, and I quite understand that, who have fled the country. The
42:12population of Ukraine is reduced by between five and eight million, depending how you estimate it
42:19since the war started, because people don't want to, you know, risk dying in a war. And I'm afraid that's
42:25the reality. So I my instinct is that the best Ukraine can do is basically and you already see
42:32President Zelensky, who's an inspirational leader, but he has to succeed now or he's political toast.
42:40The best they can do is a sort of draw score. And it was General Milley, who is the who was the
42:46chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who said, and I agreed with him, but he had got a lot of headlines,
42:52who said in 2023, now is the time to negotiate because they were it was he described as a high
42:58watermark of their attempts. Remember, people were even talking about getting back Crimea,
43:03I thought was very ill judged comments, by the way, by generals amongst others, because I never saw
43:08the Russians actually conceding Ukraine without upping the ante considerably. And, you know,
43:15we've got to be careful of talking ourselves into into a nuclear war. But but beyond no illusions,
43:20things are very unstable at the moment in that part of the world in Europe. You can see that
43:25beginning of this testing of NATO airspace and so on. You don't go into these things without being
43:34alert to the risk or you shouldn't. And that is a risk because this is an existential issue of Russia,
43:39despite I mean, I agree with all the reasons why good or understandable bad.
43:44But it's still existential for Putin. If he fails and I think for more Russians and we might count now
43:52because they are an old fashioned rather patriotic and they only get certain sources of information,
43:56too. It's an existential issue for Ukraine, quite clearly. But it's not an existential issue for Europe
44:03or really for America. I don't think it's going to be. I mean, the hypocrisy of European nations buying
44:09Russian gas and oil and doing what they're doing on the other hand, you know, they're actually
44:13spending more on Russian gas and oil than they are on helping Ukraine. Right. I rest my case.
44:18So, you know, this this is when people like Boris Johnson, probably for good intent, encouraged them
44:25to go on fighting, but failed to give them the means to win and talked about regaining all that
44:31territory. I said as a soldier, they're not going to do that way back. And why Milley said what he did say.
44:38The other point is, even if you did kick them out of Ukraine, they're not defeated in the sense that
44:43we've gone into Moscow and they're all sitting there sort of with our arms up in the air. They're
44:48not. They're going to become very, very embittered and dangerous. And we need to think the implications
44:53of that through as well. So like Zelensky, who would appear and many others, including President Trump,
44:59I would now seek a ceasefire, but some sort of peace and play a long game to get those oblasts and Crimea
45:08back might take two or three generations post Putin probably. But, you know, you have to hold your nose and we
45:14need to bring diplomacy back into this thing. I would start to bring Russia slowly, but surely back into the Western
45:22fold in a way. To be fair, they wanted back in the nineties, but we sort of, you know, failed to take
45:29them up on their requests and then separate China from Russia because perverse at the moment from a
45:35grand strategic point of view, we're pushing these potential adversaries. You could say that our
45:40adversaries together, which is exactly what we shouldn't be doing because China is supporting Russia.
45:46Yes. And China is a bigger, long term, genuine issue than Russia is. And the other thing that disappoints me,
45:53we've also somehow alienated India in the process. So they're in the mix. And much of the rest of the world,
46:00because partly, as you were saying about, you know, our failures in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and our inability
46:07to live up to our promises, they're not actually on our side. The rules based order seems to look after those who,
46:15dreamt them up back in the 1940s, not very good for much of the rest of the world. So if you look at
46:22a map of the world, a large chunk of it, the majority of the biggest populations and the biggest
46:28land masses are not on our side. So grand strategy, that isn't very sensible either. And we need to start
46:36correcting it over a generation or two. Do you agree with the recent government, British government
46:42assessment that China is not a threat? I think China is a threat, but I know why they would not
46:48describe it as an enemy. China is a competitor. I don't think that I'm like all generals, a great
46:57believer in Sun Tzu. And I'm sure President Xi and all the other Chinese top officials were brought up on
47:05Sun Tzu's philosophies. I don't think that they aspire, even in the case of Taiwan, unless Taiwan
47:14becomes very awkward for them to militarily aggrandize themselves. They've got the One Belt Road
47:21initiative, which I wish we had an equivalent to, because that's a genuine grand strategy, just like
47:27Sun Tzu would endorse. And they're making huge headway all around the world. I'll give you one example,
47:32going back to Afghanistan, because of our refusal to engage with the Taliban, Russia and China are in
47:39there exploiting all their very considerable raw materials and rare earths. And we're stiff arming
47:46them all on the whole about the Taliban's failure to properly educate girls above a certain age. Well,
47:55you've got to play that long. This is where interests and values must be aligned, at least better than we
48:01seem to be in large parts of the world. That's just one of many examples we could talk about.
48:07But at the end of the day, I did say I was slightly contrary on a few things. Well, yeah,
48:10no, because there's an internal interests and values. Your values have often trumped what were
48:15perceived in the early stages of your interest. But I synthesize them in the field. It's great having
48:22values if your interests can be aligned with them and you can succeed. But when you're not succeeding,
48:27you have to judge what success is. But I would say in Ukraine, I don't think we're currently
48:33succeeding. Lots of wonderful people are dying. 90,000 plus amputees in Ukraine. I mean, is it worth
48:40it for this possible defeat? Define it. No one has. Russia in those four oblasts in Crimea. It might.
48:49But the Ukrainian, to be fair, the Ukrainians, they know what victory looks like. The West
48:53and allies keep moving the Overton window of that. Yes, I think less fewer and fewer Ukrainians want
49:01this war to go on. And President Zelensky himself has said he's prepared to do a deal. He just wants
49:06to be on the right terms. My sadness about Ukraine is I don't think either side will have irreconcilable
49:12positions at the moment and that will be fought out on the battlefield. More people will die. And I
49:19don't think it's right for the West to say this is up to the Ukrainians. We're there for as long as you
49:24want, say people like Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer. Actually, that's an, in my judgment,
49:28abrogation of their responsibilities, because we are all being affected by this, both economically,
49:34obviously, but also through our failure to succeed, which is gnawing away at people. And obviously,
49:40there is a risk that things can escalate, not necessarily into nuclear war, but we're beginning to
49:45see an escalation, which arguably is unnecessary to risk. It's also open ended, isn't it?
49:51Where's it finished? You mentioned Milley there, a distinguished general, also former commander of ISAF
49:59after you. I met him out there. He still thinks I'm a British spy.
50:05On you.
50:06But he's also in hiding from his own president, having had his security detail removed. And even
50:15though he's had Biden give him a preemptive pardon. I mean, this is a man, former special forces
50:20commander who has served his country and is now in hiding effectively from his own government.
50:27Are we now looking at this whole spectacle through the wrong end of the lens? I mean,
50:37how much more disruption and more erosion of democracy can America
50:42go through before it starts to see appear to be less less of an ally and more of a problem?
50:50Well, you're getting into very sensitive territory here.
50:54That's right. You're retired. I'm a crossbencher. But I absolutely understand why you've asked
51:01that question. I mean, on a personal level, I think it's tragic that General Milley's in
51:06this situation. He had the integrity and honesty to say what he did say. And it conflicts with
51:14President Trump's own view of life. So I hope very much that President Trump and his advisers
51:21and the new Secretary of War, which says a bit in itself, will see the right, will do the right
51:29thing by General Milley very soon. It's very interesting, that recent gathering at Quantico.
51:35I was just thinking, how would you have reacted to being told you're a bit chubby?
51:39Well, exactly. Luckily, I'm not. I'd be out of a job. But it was noticeable. I'm told that
51:46they did not get one single round of applause. I don't know if that's true or not. But I certainly
51:50they just sat very stony face, very distinguished looking bunch. But the fact that they have signed
51:56an oath to the Constitution and not to the president, I think is really important and reassuring
52:02that quietly that was told someone made sure that the media were very strongly alerted to that. And I
52:11think we, you know, I have a huge regard like you do for many of those people. But going back
52:15to Milley and your more the fundamental question, the thing with President Trump is that he's full
52:24of contradictions. I mean, what he's doing in Gaza, if it comes off, despite our, I think, collective
52:34distaste, and you could put it much more strongly for Israeli tactics will be quite an achievement.
52:41And if he could do it, and I think there's a long way to go on this yet, then, you know,
52:47I find it extremely distasteful that, you know, he openly touts his candidacy for a Nobel Peace
52:53Prize. I mean, you know, that's got you've got to have a problem to do that without, you know,
52:59seriously, I should get the Nobel Peace Prize. But quite bizarre. But that is the man. And the fact
53:05is, he is president. So I think that if he pulls that off and can bring Prime Minister Netanyahu with
53:14him, which he will find very difficult, then that will be quite an achievement. So you have that on
53:20the one hand, versus that sort of stuff we've just been talking about. Well, and threatening to invade
53:24Denmark and Canada. I mean, crazy stuff and Greenland. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I agree,
53:30there's fundamental questions that come out of it. One of them is, of course, the fact that Europe has
53:35been living off American largesse for 50 ever since the Second World War. But that's been grotesque,
53:41in my view. Absolutely. Disgraceful.
53:43Sponging off the American taxpayer has always been unconscionable.
53:47Exactly. Unforgivable. And we're now having our bluff call. But even because even if we say we wanted to do
53:53much more for Ukraine, we can't do much more because we don't have the resources.
53:57But isn't this a major, genuine turning point historically in that because we've got a
54:04mercurial, shall we say, diplomatically American president who is manifestly deranged in some of
54:12his policies, and he has forced NATO to look after its own house and pay for its own operations in the
54:21future, one hopes or assumes, that actually you could see the rise of the West coming out of Europe,
54:27a European hegemony starting to evolve independently entirely of America. And if so,
54:34is that a bad thing? Well, I don't think it'll ever be entirely independent, not for a generation or two,
54:39because of the economic relationships, as well as the enduring security ones. So that could happen,
54:47but not, it's not going to happen in a while, because it's going to take a long time to build
54:52Europe's defences and armed forces up to the sort of level where you might be able to say you're a
54:59competitor in some way, I hope never aggressively towards America. But I think, look, the world is so
55:07chaotic. There is a case. And I can see me being accused of peddling a sort of autocratic populist
55:17line, which I'm not. But there is a case in the way the Congress of Vienna in 1814 led to the rise of
55:26great powers, and a peace that basically was sustained for 100 years. I think that we will find
55:33ourselves having to go back to that issue of values and interests, having to listen much more and
55:39respond to what is in our vital national interests, rather than getting involved in the vital national
55:46interests of another power block or great power, such as China or Russia. So China decides to do
55:54something in its sphere of influence and how you this will be very untidy to begin with, but it might
55:59sort of shape out. We have to bite our lips and say, that's not for us. And that's that's really how
56:05the peace was preserved during that hundred years. And in a way, during the Cold War. Yeah, we did. Yeah,
56:12we didn't get involved with Prague. Well, we did with lots of proxy wars. A lot of people died, but not our
56:18people. Yes, Africa in particular, but the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved. A Berlin, you know, a couple of
56:26Berlin episodes were resolved. They sort of did deals. There was an understanding on both sides,
56:33by the way. It wasn't just that we conceded to Russia at all, necessarily. We did our bit. I think
56:39that's how things will probably play out more. But there'll be a big pushback in liberal Europe against
56:47that. And that is where the next, you know, electoral cycle is likely to take us. And you see
56:54Marie Le Pen in France now heading the polls here. We've got Nigel Farage, who I suspect his instinct
57:00is roughly in that area. And you've got Trump, who undoubtedly is thinking those sorts of things.
57:07All three of those characters and indeed the current British government, to a greater or lesser extent,
57:11talking about or have cut overseas development aid, which I know you see as an important strategic
57:18lever for the UK and its allies to pull. Why should people pay their tax pounds to underpin development
57:31or emergencies in corrupt nations of the global south? Well, they're not all corrupt. So I think
57:39you might agree some are, but there's lots of corruption in other parts of the world to different
57:44types, maybe. So it's I think it should be viewed like we do our defence budget. This is a necessary
57:52thing to do to help secure Britain's future to mitigate problems early to get in at the source of them. We're
58:05complaining all the time, understanding about the huge increase in illegal immigration, but also other
58:11types of immigration. In part, that's because the countries from which those people are coming are
58:16very, very poor. Where's the grand strategy that builds their economies up rather than putting billions
58:24and billions of trillions of money into armament spending? If you just put a small chunk of that into
58:30building the economies of the global south, you might find that suddenly the immigration problems
58:36start to reduce. I'm sure you would actually, because they in their own countries, they'd rather
58:40stay there. You know, there's a future at the moment. It's the most resourceful often that make their way
58:46to Europe and Britain. So there is a very commonsensical reason to spending money on development in the
58:53round. I mean, for one of a better term, the other one is a moral issue. Actually, you know, is it right
58:58that we in a very, despite everyone's complaints, we're a very prosperous country that we can't set,
59:04you know, in the way we historically have given charity ourselves, that we can't as a nation help
59:10these people in such calamitous situations. I think most of us think we should and 0.1% of gross national
59:20income being spent on that, I think is both morally, but more importantly, from my point of view, in many
59:25respects, strategically an error, which will come back to bite us. David Richards, I know you've got to go.
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